The World Health Organization is convening a special session of its governing body, the World Health Assembly, to start talks on a new global treaty covering pandemics. Representatives of WHO's 194 member states will meet virtually for three days starting on Monday to consider new international rules for handling future outbreaks.

The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, says the world has not worked well together to confront the current COVID-19 pandemic.

"Everybody has seen to what extent we were really disorganized and all have seen the failures of the global system," Tedros says.

COVID-19 pandemic shows "we don't have rules of the game"

Those failures during the current pandemic have been many, says Tedros.

The first was the slow response to containing the initial outbreak, say public health specialists. They also point to conflicts over the lack of transparency and information sharing, particularly by China. Some countries were accused of hoarding of medical supplies. Then when vaccines were finally developed, poorer nations have complained that they weren't shared equitably. A final concern, the experts say: The global response to the crisis is led by an underfunded World Health Organization that has no power to force any nation to do anything.

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