A/HRC/44/49 Contents Page I. Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 3 II. Disease pandemics and the freedom of opinion and expression ................................................... 4 III. Five challenges during pandemics ................................................................................................ 7 A. Access to information held by public authorities .................................................................. 7 B. Access to the Internet ............................................................................................................ 9 C. Protection and promotion of independent media .................................................................. 10 D. Public health disinformation ................................................................................................. 13 E. Public health surveillance ..................................................................................................... 16 Concluding remarks ...................................................................................................................... 17 IV. 2