Honduras President at UN proposes reforms to the WHO system

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras, Sept. 27, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- In his speech to the UN General Assembly, President Juan Orlando Hernández proposed a reform of the international health system, especially of the World Health Organization (WHO), due to the inequity reflected in the distribution of covid-19 vaccines to developing countries that, despite having the money, were not able to obtain access to them.

In meeting with the Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres, Hernandez said that an emergency fund should be created with the contribution of all countries to guarantee equitable access to vaccines or any other medicine.

"We can´t afford waiting another pandemic to optimize the Covax mechanism's vaccine purchase system," said the Honduran leader.

 "Today, the whole world is facing a pandemic that has brought us to our knees. At the beginning, Covax experienced issues with being able to fulfill the distribution of vaccines to member countries, a critical moment in which our lives are at stake".

This situation put into evidence the important fact that the WHO should not wait for problems to arise to prepare for solutions. They cannot be unprepared to face this or any other emergency.

"In addition, there was the problem that the countries that managed or requested the procurement of vaccines could not do so either because the most powerful countries had them monopolized," he stressed.

Hernández suggested that this situation can be avoided in the future by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) with access to resources, considering that the great majority of the countries have assigned budgets for purchasing vaccines. "Then it is only a matter of regionalizing the research and production systems throughout the world, such as some pharmaceutical companies are doing" he

In addition, Hernández said that countries that tend to hoard everything need to react, as happened with vaccines against covid-19.

He gave as an example that if the United States does not send vaccines to Latin America, it will continue to be at risk in terms of the pandemic, and the same will happen with Europe in relation to Africa.

Hernández and Guterres held a bilateral meeting at the UN offices, within the framework of the United Nations General Assembly, where they also addressed issues related to climate change and the proposal of Honduras to support the implementation of a system flood control.

Source: https://presidencia.gob.hn/press/blog-node/presidente-hern%C3%A1ndez-propone-ante-la-onu-reformar-el-sistema-de-la-oms

SOURCE Government of Honduras