Op-Ed by Mariana Mazzucato, professor at UCL and chair of the World Health Organization Council on the Economics of Health for All
… The pandemic has permanently changed the world: the new Pandemic Accord currently being negotiated among WHO member states is testament to that. We need to be prepared to respond to the next pathogen that poses this level of threat — one that could be deadlier than Covid-19 — and prevent it from devastating our lives. However, the leaked draft text of this accord reveals that we may be on the verge of discounting what we have learnt over the past three years and squandering this opportunity to safeguard our futures. In our final report, the WHO’s Council on the Economics of Health for All argues that the cost of inaction now is greater than the cost of action. … The global accord currently being drafted must ensure that publicly-funded research and development serves the common good. The leaked text shows that conditions for the transparent publication of prices of pharmaceutical products, along with data sharing and technology transfer, will be voluntary. This would be a grave mistake — the same made during the pandemic, when hundreds of millions across the world were denied timely vaccines, in part because of the desire to maximise the profits of a few companies. And this is not just about prices, it is also about conditions for technology sharing: intellectual property rights have been badly governed.