Johnson calls for new international treaty on pandemic preparedness

Prime Minister Boris Johnson (Luciana Guerra/PA)

Boris Johnson has said the world was “just as disunited as Achilles and Agamemnon” before the coronavirus pandemic as he called for a new international treaty to tackle not just this global threat, but any in the future too.

Addressing the Global Health Summit hosted by Italy and the EU in Rome, the British prime minister referenced the Iliad as he drew comparisons between the plague in the ancient Greek epic and the coronavirus outbreak.