The Global Health Security Act
Recently, two people died in the United States because of monkeypox. Our President recently declared the pandemic over, but COVID-19 cases are rising in the UK, France is about to face its eighth wave, and China has just lifted its lockdown measures for millions of its people. It’s 2022 and the world’s most powerful nations still cannot control COVID-19 and are ill-equipped against monkeypox. Why do we have to continue to suffer? Diseases know no borders, and that is why nations must come together and work together to turn the page on this unending crisis.
What is the Global Health Security Act?
Adopted by the House of Representatives, the Global Health Security Act has been awaiting Senate approval since June 28, 2021. This law aims to strengthen our capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to future pandemics. Our government’s commitment to the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), a multilateral initiative established in 2014 to strengthen health systems around the world, will be further strengthened, same for our own health systems. Passing the Global Health Security Act also means ensuring that the hospitals and laboratories that need the most help around the world get the assistance they need. It is more than a law, it is a global project that aims to put aside our differences in order to come together around a common goal: to secure our health.
So why do you have to call your Senators?
For two years, we have been overwhelmed by the coronavirus to such an extent that we end up wondering if it has not become the new flu. Many are wondering if it could not be the new flu, but if it were, we would not be here listing the number of cases in each country and China would not be there confining millions of its inhabitants. Ensuring that the best scientists in this world work together to understand the infectious diseases that are likely to fall on us is more than necessary. We took the coronavirus so lightly in 2019, when the first case was reported in Wuhan, and we let this virus take over our lives to such an extent that many of us wonder what our lives were like before this pandemic. Can you? I so wish that scientists had had the opportunity to understand this virus from the start because everything has been turned upside down since.
The economy of our country and those of the whole world have been seriously disrupted. We have all lost something during this crisis: money, work, goals, ambitions, life projects, friends, lovers, aunts, uncles, fathers, mothers, children. We have lost more than material things; we have lost loved ones. We may all be different in this world; our nations may all be different, but we are all connected by love. And we’ve all lost the same thing: loved ones that we’ll never see again.
This crisis, which has been so severe in the Western world, has been even more so in underdeveloped countries. The coronavirus has indeed increased the number of people living below the poverty line for the first time in decades. Old diseases that the UN has worked so hard to eradicate are making a comeback, such as tuberculosis. These countries that have been neglected during the pandemic are, however, those that require the most assistance. They need you.
Contact or call your Senator. You can hear this PSA now airing on Healthcare NOW Radio.
