The Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) council member and former Under Secretary-General of the UN, Shamshad Akhtar said that coordination is cornerstone in global health emergencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the 75 years since its establishment, the WHO has worked hard to do a lot of work. However, from an overall perspective, we are still far from achieving true global coordination.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe functions of many departments and platforms are highly overlapping. Such an inefficient situation may have been ignored by the world for so long, which has ruthlessly exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic,\u201d Shamshad Akhtar expressed at the 3rd Conference of Global Health Forum (GHF) of Boao Forum for Asia, China Economic Net (CEN) reported.<\/p>\n
The Pakistani economist and diplomat\u2019s view was endorsed by renowned Chinese virologist and immunologist Gao Fu.<\/p>\n
Gao pointed out that countries are paying more attention to competition, not collaboration.<\/p>\n
He made a remark that the coronavirus is human\u2019s enemy, but learning from the enemy is the key to defeating it. All parties need and must to learn the virus\u2019s spirit of collaboration.<\/p>\n
Currently, multitudinous vaccines, namely precise small molecule inhibitors are being used, but the novel coronavirus could successfully escape repeatedly because of the synergy of its variants around the world.<\/p>\n
The interaction between them makes their mutation rate faster and faster, and even produces sub-variants, for they are extremely good at learning from each other and sharing data.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce they know that the original strain is useless, they will mutate immediately. Scientists couldn\u2019t name all the variants even if we use up all 26 Greek letters. Thus, know yourself as well as the enemy, and let\u2019s collaborate now.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Akhtar endorsed Gao\u2019s view, added that global medical institutions are in urgent need of reform, during which multilateralism should be the crux.<\/p>\n
Not only governments and national institutions, but also small and medium-sized enterprises should actively participate in the process, in which data sharing is critical.<\/p>\n
In addition, she mentioned global financing as a foundation. \u201cI worked at the World Bank for a long time, so I feel deeply about this point. In layman\u2019s terms, what could be done without money?\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Akhtar talked about Pakistan\u2019s experience, noting that relevant departments of Pakistan tried their best to provide a large amount of funding to fight against COVID-19 epidemic, as well as received financial support from partner countries and international organizations, all of which are extremely vital.<\/p>\n
\u201cCollaboration means that the question we have to think about is: whether globalization can really be achieved?\u201d Under the threat of global epidemics might happen in the future, each country can\u2019t do anything on its own.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just as Ms. Akhtar mentioned, \u201cestablish a mechanism to solve problems, such as the fundraising and allocation of funds, more efficiently, is what we have to do now,\u201d Gao emphasized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Boao Forum for Asia (BFA) council member and former Under Secretary-General of the UN, Shamshad Akhtar said that coordination is cornerstone in global health emergencies. \u201cIn the 75 years since its establishment, the WHO has worked hard to do a lot of work. However, from an overall perspective, we are still far from achieving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418981,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-418976","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n