Tackling Pandemics Means Relearning the Lessons of Fighting HIV

An HIV-positive woman receives medicine through an intravenous drip at a Doctors Without Borders clinic in Yangon, Myanmar, on Feb. 21, 2012. Myanmar was facing “a devastating gap” between people’s needs and access to treatment after the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria announced plans to cancel funding for 2013 because of a lack of donor money. Soe Zeya Tun/REUTERS

May 30, 2021, 6:00 AM

This week, the World Health Assembly (WHA), the governing body of the World Health Organization, is grappling with how best to prepare for and ideally prevent future pandemics. The WHA is taking as its starting point recommendations from the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, which issued its findings earlier this month. The report is toothier and more specific than prior comparable commissions but has also generated debate over if and how to create a global governing body for pandemic action.