GENEVA (AN) — Despite almost two and a half years of negotiations, a World Health Organization panel came up empty-handed trying to negotiate the world's first treaty to prepare for future pandemics.
WHO leaders and diplomats from among the world body's 194-member nations signaled on Friday they don't intend to give up, however, and will push for next week's World Health Assembly to reauthorize another try.
The assembly created the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body in Dec. 2021, after the COVID-19 pandemic nearly reached the two-year mark, and gave it a May 2024 deadline to draft a global pandemic plan.
"We've come to the end of a roller coaster ride," INB co-chair Roland Driece told a final session of the INB, which led the effort to draft and negotiate a global treaty.
"We are not where we hoped we would be when we started this process. But we've come a long way. We're going to see where we are in a couple of weeks," he said. "We truly hope the assembly will take the decision to take this forward."
INB co-chair Precious Matsoso predicted that when negotiators look back on the past nearly two and a half years of talks, they will probably recall the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., who said the ultimate measure of a person is not in moments of comfort and convenience, but at times of challenge and controversy.
"We may not have finished, but we still have an opportunity," she said before officially gaveling the INB process to a close at the end of its last session.
WHO's Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus vowed not to give up, saying the need for equity always was at the center of the negotiations because of how rich nations hoarded pandemic-related products including diagnostic tests, therapeutic treatments and vaccines.
“We will try everything, believing that anything is possible, and make this happen. Because the world still needs a pandemic treaty, and the world needs to be prepared," Tedros said.
"This is not a failure," he emphasized. "I see the assembly actually has a platform to re-energize this process. So my wish is we will come out of the assembly re-energized, inspired."
'Light at the end of the tunnel'
The latest draft plan revolved around a legally binding proposal for WHO to receive and distribute 20% of the world's pandemic-related products. Half of that would have been donated to WHO free of charge; the other half would have been turned over at not-for-profit prices during public health emergencies of international concern, known as PHEICs, or pandemics.
Nations also would have been required to share viral specimens and genome sequences of pathogens that have pandemic potential with a WHO-managed global respository and database. That would have allowed others to use the intellectual property to create their own products. But the proposal to improve the sharing of resources and halt future pandemics would have imposed few consequences for nations that did not comply.
India, a leading producer of vaccines and generic drugs, kicked off the talks with a push on behalf of other Southeast Asian nations to "operationalize equity." African nations voiced support while nations such as Switzerland, the United Kingdom and United States, home to major drug makers, rejected efforts to loosen restrictions on patent sharing.
"I know that we're all disappointed that we don't have a dance and champagne together, but I think we should all be proud of the work we did," said U.S. Ambassador Pamela Hamamoto, the lead U.S. negotiator for proposed treaty, pointing to "the fact that we've broadened and deepened our understanding of each other. That's all very helpful and can be built upon going forward."
Victor Nwaoba Itumo, a senior counselor in Nigeria's U.N. mission in Geneva, said his nation was "very prepared to continue our work and deliver something for our generation, in our time."
"There is hope for the future regardless of what the assembly decides," he said. "There is light at the end of the tunnel."
