Topic: 2024-Spread of Animal Viruses
Country: Switzerland
Delegate Name: Saraswati Guzzardo
Globally, seasonal influenza kills an average of 700,000 people each year (Dattani). The World Health Organization has had a flu vaccine since 1945, and yet 700,000 people per year still die from this curable disease. This zoonotic virus, likely originating from the domestication of pigs and birds, has ravaged the human populations for over a century, killing between 50 to 100 million people since 1918. Today, we are the global defense system against viruses like these.
Switzerland is amongst the most prepared countries in the world when it comes to the prevention of health threats. We excel at national legislation, public policy, and international communication (Prevent Epidemics). In June of 2023, the Swiss electorate passed a bill regarding future measures to be taken with COVID-19-related diseases. Medicines for severe COVID-19-related diseases can continue to be imported and used, employers can be required to continue to protect particularly vulnerable people (such as allowing them to work from home), and the currently deactivated SwissCovid app can be reactivated if required (The Federal Council of Switzerland). Switzerland continues to take proactive measures like this to prevent global and national health crises in the future and hope that other countries will take similar actions to keep their people safe.
On the international scale, WHO has created the IHR (international health regulations). This international law requires the report of public health events, outlines the criteria for a “public health emergency” or “international concern”, and protects the treatment of international travelers’ personal data, informed consent, and non-discrimination in public healthcare (World Health Organization). Even with these procedures in place, there is still so much more to be done.
The WHO must incentivize states to make proper reforms in disease prevention. Approaches to this include proper information distribution, government role and legislation, and financial encouragements. The spread of misinformation has crushed reform in the past. If, on the international scale, a committee were able to clearly mark misleading information, people would be naturally encouraged to aid in the fight against disease. Additionally, governments can switch their role from service provider to manager and financier of the health sector. Governments can use fiscal tools such as fees, taxes, and subsidies to drive global change (Harvard). Another functional incentivization is performance-based financing (PBF) which links payments to the quality and quantity of services provided by health facilities and workers on the international scale. (World Bank).
Many solutions for incentivisation can flood into lessening costs for developing nations. Switzerland believes that the subsidization of drugs and implementation of international law past the IHR can support these emergent nations. Administrations can subsidize and regulate drug prices, make bulk purchases from manufacturers for distribution at reduced prices, and distribute certain drugs with complete or partial subsidies to target populations.The health benefits and low costs of these medicinal interventions make them great targets for subsidization (Nugnet). Expanding training programs to all public providers, enforcing standards for private and public providers, changing payment systems, and developing policies to protect consumers against malpractice are legal changes that can be made to shield these developing nations and fend off possible financial threats (Nugnet).
There is not one solution to the prevention of the spread of animal viruses, nor the process of lessening developing nations costs’. Resolutions must be multi-faceted, targeting numerous issues in the healthcare field for any long lasting effect. Switzerland thinks that proper reforms and a global effort will help not only evolving nations, but the entire world. The delegation of Switzerland enters this session of the WHO with empathy and is ready for collaboration to be met with change.
