NEW YORK — 'History teaches us that the next pandemic is a matter of when, not if,' World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned earlier this year. He is right. That is why it is vital that the world's governments successfully conclude their work of negotiating an accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. Negotiators were not able to meet the latest deadline for an agreement.
One would have expected these hard-won lessons to shape the Covid-19 response. They did not. Instead, pharmaceutical companies were given vaccine monopolies, so doses were delivered to wealthy countries first, leaving poorer countries unable to secure supplies — with tragic results. A more equitable Covid-19 vaccine rollout could have saved 1.3 million lives in the first year alone.