Merkel backs efforts to improve WHO as meeting opens

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday was among leaders rallying around efforts to strengthen the World Health Organization and the world's ability to prepare for and defend against pandemics.

It came as the UN health agency opened its annual assembly, with a draft resolution in the works that acknowledges missteps in the response to COVID-19.

The sweeping proposal would seek to boost pandemic response, stabilise WHO's funding and ensure greater access to health care - including to vaccines, tests and treatments linked to the coronavirus.

The European Union and Vanuatu were behind the resolution, which was to be considered during the eight-day assembly.

It would create a working group on strengthening WHO's readiness and response to health emergencies.

Merkel threw her backing behind the idea of a "global health threat council" and said leaders should provide WHO with "lasting financial and personal support."

"We have been talking about this for years, but now it is all the more important to act," she said in a video message played Monday at the virtual meeting.

The resolution - a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press - cites COVID-19 two dozen times.

It breaks little new ground and aims mostly to garner consensus and commonality of purpose in the aftermath of the economic and human devastation wreaked by the pandemic.

The resolution, which would set up a six-person working group to report to the assembly next year, acknowledged "serious shortcomings" in the world's ability to prepare, prevent, detect and respond to health emergencies.

The text, if approved, would ask WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to make "concrete suggestions" for levels of alert in times of health emergencies, "with clear criteria and practical implications for countries."

Diplomats behind the measure said they hoped it could garner consensus among WHO's 194 member states.

Merkel warned of new pandemic risks and called on the global community to make better preparations.