Thank you Mr. Thomas Gürber, Switzerland’s new Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva, for our constructive meeting and Switzerland’s steadfast support of @WHO. I appreciated our discussion on Geneva’s vital role as WHO’s host, the centre of global health and a hub for multilateral action, including the upcoming World Health Assembly.
We also discussed WHO’s reform process, focused on strengthening its core mandate in setting health norms and convening the global health community, and work by WHO and Member States, including Switzerland, to strengthen pandemic preparedness, including through initiatives such as the Swiss-based WHO BioHub System and the ongoing negotiations on the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing annex of the WHO Pandemic Agreement.