UK to work with G7 Summit to chart 5-point plan on global health security

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the United Kingdom has announced that it plans to use its presidency of the G7 in 2021 to create a five-point plan to global health security. According to reports, the UK wishes to create this new plan and thereby a new approach to health security so that the world can be better prepared for another epidemic like COVID-19.

International community in 'Tatters': Boris Johnson

During his address to the UN General Assembly, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that after fighting the COVID-19 pandemic for nine months the international community looks ‘pretty tattered’. Johnson also added that “Our first aim should be to stop a new disease before it starts. About 60 per cent of the pathogens circulating in the human population originated in animals and leapt from one species to the other in a 'zoonotic' transmission”.

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The second objective as per Johnson in the five-point plan will enhance the worlds manufacturing capacity for treatments and vaccines while the third aspect would be to devise an early warning system so that the world is not caught off guard in the case of another pandemic. The fourth step would be in case the first three aspects of the plan failed, the fourth objective would be to have ready protocols for a genuinely global emergency response instead of having "193 different campaigns against the same enemy”.

The final objective was to prohibit countries from implementing export controls during possible global emergencies and cancel any tariffs on the vital tools required to fight the pandemic, like gloves, protective equipment, thermometers and other COVID-critical products. The virus, named COVID-19 by the World Health Organisation, has infected over 32 million people worldwide with the global death toll reaching over 979,000. The US has reported more than 7.2 million positive COVID-19 cases and a death toll of over 200,000.

(With ANI inputs, Image: AP)

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