Geneva World Health Assembly Update – Part 2 (By Robert Doble)

On Tuesday we heard Bill Gates address the assembly on the importance of vaccines and for member states to support the June GAVI replenishment conference in London as well as to support efforts to give the final push to eradicating polio (e.g. holding up David Cameron's commitment to double $ for polio as a positive example). 

This is quite an interesting time for vaccines. The WHO launched its first Global 10-year Immunization Framework and Strategy (GIVS) in 2006 and an update report will be presented later in the week. Bill Gates' called for the 'Decade of Vaccines' back in January 2010 which has brought a new drive and another global health collaboration set-up in December 2010 called the 'Decade of Vaccines Collaboration' (http://www.gatesfoundation.org/press-releases/Pages/decade-of-vaccines-collaboration.aspx). This collaboration will work over an 18-month period to deliver a Global Vaccines Action Plan (GVAP) by mid-2012. Member states will also have the opportunity to discuss the strategic direction for the Decade of Vaccines Collaboration so will keep you posted on this.

Bryan and Rachel had meetings with Hans Hogerzeil (Director of Essential Medicines and Pharmaceutical Policy at WHO) and with a member of the US delegation who is heavily involved in the NCDs work. Both meetings were really positive. In particular the meeting with the US government delegate was really encouraging - she hadn't heard of UAEM but loved the concept of getting student leaders involved in these issues!

Wednesday morning, Committee A discussed WHO reform and Margaret Chan was present and spoke. Member states generally supported the call for a strong, adequately financed WHO and supported Chan in trying to drive this forward. However, some member states (such as Brazil, see http://keionline.org/node/1137) and a couple of NGO speeches from People's Health Movement, Corporate Accountability International, World Vision and Medicus Mundi highlighted some concerns (see http://www.phmovement.org/ for statements). In particular, there were some concerns on the proposed World Health Forum, potential opening up of WHO to more private funding and increased corporate influence, and potential sidelining of WHO as just a technical agency rather than lead organisation coordinating and directing responses to global health challenges. Chan responded by committing to transparency and inclusive consultation in the reform process but stressed that we do need to work with private actors (she gave example that without Serum Institute we wouldn't have MenAfriVac). She reassured that Member States would have biggest voice. On the World Health Forum - she will continue to consult and outline more detailed proposal to WHO EB 2012. She thanked Member States for their commitment to a strong WHO and the reform program. She will oversee the reform personally together with Global Policy Group of WHO and will consult until all Member States are happy.

For the rest of the day, Julia from UAEM Germany joined us at a Medicines Patent Pool lunchtime side-event at WIPO as WIPO is also discussing the issue of 'Patents and Health' at the moment and Bryan attended the WIPO sessions on this in the afternoon and so may be able to send an update on this later in the week.

On wednesday evening, MSF and the IFRC held a side-event on immunization which I attended that talked about how to get the balance right on immunization (supporting introduction of new vaccines while also ensuring high coverage for routine immunization, and developing comprehensive national immunization strategies as part of wider packages and health system strengthening to address child health). The discussion during this event also touched on issues of GAVI replenishment and reform - how to ensure GAVI has sufficient money to support introduction of new vaccines such as rotavirus but also addressing GAVI governance issues and how to ensure GAVI maximises its ability to shape the market dynamics for vaccines, in particular to lower vaccines prices. Bryan went to an event on the work of UNITAID and Julia attended a session on how to improve access to medicines in developing countries via local production and technology transfer. Hopefully they can send you some notes on those when they get chance.

This morning (Thursday morning) I'm currently watching the Committee A discussions on pandemic influenza virus sharing. In 2007, Indonesia ceased sharing H5N1 influenza virus samples with WHO's Global Influenza Surveillance Network 

For overview of the case see paper by my PhD supervisors:            http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/5/0/1/2/7/p501277_index.html. 

Essentially though, this political controversy prompted a process of re-examining of this technical cooperation system and in April 2011 agreement was reached on a new framework which now needs to be adopted by the WHA                    http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2011/pandemic_influenza_prep_20110417/en/index.html.

Coming up next is the update on the WHO Global Immunization Vision and Strategy and discussion on Decade of Vaccines Collaboration. And I'll try and give an update on the NCD work later too.

Hope the above is useful, sorry it isn't more succinct but do send me questions if anything isn't clear.