S'pore will continue to strengthen disease surveillance: Ong Ye Kung

It is sharing key info although a pandemic cooperation pact remains elusive

- Judith Tan

Despite a global agreement on pandemic cooperation remaining elusive even after the devastating impact of Covid-19, Singapore will continue to strengthen its disease surveillance and support efforts to tackle future pandemics.

For instance, Singapore had detected that the JN.1 and KP.X Covid-19 strains were dominant during the past infection waves here, and shared useful information such as genetic sequences with other nations, Health Minister Ong Ye Kung said on June 4.

In his Facebook post following the annual World Health Assembly (WHA) held in Geneva, Switzerland between May 27 and June 1, Mr Ong rued that the pandemic agreement spearheaded by the World Health Organisation fell through after two years of negotiations. He attributed this to an erosion of trust between developing and developed countries due to the disparity of vaccine availability during the pandemic.

The pandemic treaty sought a global agreement on how to best handle the next pandemic that public health officials say is sure to come, to avoid the missteps and disparities seen during the Covid-19 outbreak. But talks hit a dead end as some participating countries disagreed on a range of issues.