The COVID-19 pandemic was the most severe global health crisis in a century, killing at least 20 million people and wiping more than $10 trillion from the global economy.
WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus said on Friday during an online news conference that the pandemic exposed and worsened weaknesses in global health security while teaching the world painful lessons. Countries must learn from those lessons, he said, because the next pandemic is not a question of if it will occur, but when.
Ghebreyesus noted that the ongoing Bundibugyo Ebola virus disease outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo showed that outbreaks can begin anywhere and threaten neighbouring countries and the wider world. He also cited the recent hantavirus outbreak aboard the MV Hondius as evidence that international threats require international responses, adding that cooperation among countries and partners, particularly Spain, helped control and stop the outbreak.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic, WHO has established 12 key initiatives to strengthen global health security across six major areas. These include the Pandemic Fund with the World Bank and the Universal Health and Preparedness Review to strengthen national preparedness capacities. WHO also established the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence in Berlin to strengthen disease surveillance and early warning systems.
Efforts to improve equitable access to vaccines and other health tools include COVAX, the mRNA Technology Transfer Programme and the Biomanufacturing Workforce Training Initiative. WHO also established the BioHub in Switzerland to promote international sharing of pathogen samples and strengthen global preparedness, as well as the Global Health Emergency Corps to strengthen countries’ capacity to respond effectively to health emergencies.
Member States adopted amendments to the International Health Regulations in 2024, strengthening the international legal framework for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. Countries also adopted the WHO Pandemic Agreement in 2025, which Ghebreyesus described as a landmark international legal instrument for strengthening global pandemic preparedness.
The remaining piece is the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing system, which countries are still negotiating to complete the pandemic preparedness framework. Ghebreyesus expressed confidence that countries would overcome their remaining differences and reach agreement, saying this was essential to enable countries to begin ratifying the Pandemic Agreement and allow it to enter into force.
He rejected misinformation portraying the Pandemic Agreement as a “power grab” that would transfer national sovereignty to WHO. The agreement was negotiated and adopted by sovereign countries acting in their own national interests, he stressed, adding that shared threats require shared responses. An approach in which every country acted alone would not work against pandemics — the same principle that underpins the political declaration being discussed at the UN high-level meeting.
That declaration contains commitments to concrete, measurable and urgent action to address existing gaps in pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. Ghebreyesus thanked WHO Member States for their commitment and commended Armenia and Rwanda, as co-chairs, for leading negotiations on the political declaration. He said WHO looked forward to the declaration’s adoption and would support countries in implementing the commitments they had made.
