ABSTRACT: The Transnational Radical Party asks for the immediate creation of a crisis intervention task force under the coordination of W.H.O. and the direct responsibility of the Secretary General of the U.N.

May 12, 1995

New York, Bruxelles, Rome. Today also the Ebola virus has advanced mercilessly in its death march. The issue of pandemics and emerging viruses must be considered as a "political" priority. The HIV/AIDS virus represents a mere symptom of a far bigger tragedy such as other varieties of lethal viruses known as Ebola, Marburg, Junin, Lassa, Machupo, Guanarito, Dengue, O'nyong-nyong.

The TRP, during the years, has carried out campaigns on AIDS and pandemics with the objective of alerting the various governments and the general public about emerging viruses; unfortunately with no results. Faced with the prospective of vast pandemics, the prevailing attitude is one of fatalism. It seems that, as in the case of AIDS, they will wait until the Ebola virus will spread enough and become a global problem in order to begin some tardy and tentative countermeasures.

Since 1993, the TRP has worked on and promoted a proposal to create a coherent and transnational juridical picture through a multilateral instrument such as a U.N. convention. However, yesterday as today, we have to acknowledge that:

* - there are no official definitions or classifications for epidemic contingencies;

* - the response to emergencies is given on an "ad hoc" basis;

* - there is no official procedure to determine which organization or organizations at the international level must assume the administrative, technical and financial responsibility, not to mention the political responsibility;

* - the lack of a well established communication network prevents an effective response by the various international institutions.

WHO - The World Health Organization - by itself cannot cope with emergencies: with an annual budget of 250 million dollars, it would hardly be able to manage a hospital of an average city, let alone the needs of more than 160 member Countries and of billions of people! In spite of its legitimate limits, the WHO remains the only supranational organ recognized by the international community in the health sector.

What the TRP is proposing is therefore, that the joint U.N. Program on AIDS (it includes all international concerned agencies: UNICEF, UNDP, UNESCO, UNFPA, WHO, and the World Bank) be expanded to include emerging viruses and that in its core there be urgently established a unified crisis intervention task force under the coordination of the WHO and the personal responsibility of the Secretary General Boutros-Ghali.