GENEVA (AN) — After more than three years of intensive negotiations, the U.N. health agency's member nations clinched a deal on a draft pandemic treaty that will go to the World Health Assembly for approval in May.
The negotiations, stretching over 13 formal rounds of meetings since the assembly authorized them in Dec. 2021, finally concluded on early Wednesday morning. The final hurdle involved resolving a difficult question about whether drug makers should be required to give others the technology needed to make pandemic-related vaccines, treatments, and other products. The answer: All such transfers must be "mutually agreed."
The proposed legally binding treaty aims to strengthen global collaboration and prepare the world for the next pandemic so the grave mistakes and colossal inequities of the COVID-19 pandemic are not repeated.
It would ensure that the World Health Organization has "real-time access" to 20% of the world's production of all safe and effective pandemic-related products, including vaccines, oxygen, personal protective gear, diagnostics and therapeutics.
Nations that host drug makers' facilities would be required to provide 10% of those products for free and to offer the other 10% at "affordable prices," and drug makers would have to agree to this if they want to be part of a pathogen access and benefit sharing system. WHO and the drug makers would agree to a delivery schedule, and WHO would distribute them as needed among developing countries.
Another feature of the text, the "One Health" approach, is meant to prevent zoonotic diseases that spread from animals to humans. It emphasizes that human, animal, and environmental health are linked: a disease outbreak in animals can spread to humans and changes in the environment can impact animal and human health.
The Pandemic Action Network, which launched in April 2020 as a partnership among more than 350 organizations, said the proposed treaty is the first global health agreement grounded in One Health principles that explicitly acknowledges the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health.
"At a time when multilateralism is under threat, WHO member states have joined together to say that we will defeat the next pandemic threat in the only way possible: by working together," said former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark, co-chair of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response.
As WHO's decision-making body, the World Health Assembly created the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body almost three and a half years ago to craft the treaty's draft text. Its approval by the assembly is expected, but not automatic.
"We look forward to the World Health Assembly's consideration of the agreement and – we hope – its adoption," WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
Tedros praised the negotiating body for reaching consensus approval. The text includes the creation of a pathogen access and benefit sharing system, coordinating financial mechanism, global supply chain and logistics network, and geographically diverse research and development capacity.
"The nations of the world made history in Geneva today," he said. "In reaching consensus on the pandemic agreement, not only did they put in place a generational accord to make the world safer, they have also demonstrated that multilateralism is alive and well, and that in our divided world, nations can still work together to find common ground, and a shared response to shared threats."
Critics of the proposed treaty often invoked claims that the treaty might infringe on nation's sovereignty. In response, negotiators made sure the draft text explicitly "affirms the sovereignty of countries to address public health matters within their borders," WHO said.
It also states, WHO said, that "nothing in the draft agreement shall be interpreted as providing WHO any authority to direct, order, alter or prescribe national laws or policies, or mandate states to take specific actions, such as ban or accept travelers, impose vaccination mandates or therapeutic or diagnostic measures or implement lockdowns."
The United States, which is withdrawing from WHO under an executive order from U.S. President Donald Trump and significantly de-funding global health programs, did not take part in the final negotiations.
A co-chair of the negotiations, Precious Matsoso, who formerly ran South Africa's health agency, said she was "overjoyed" nations agreed to increase equity and protect future generations from repeating COVID-19 era mistakes – including rampant vaccine hoarding by rich countries.
"The negotiations, at times, have been difficult and protracted," she said. "But this monumental effort has been sustained by the shared understanding that viruses do not respect borders, that no one is safe from pandemics until everyone is safe, and that collective health security is an aspiration we deeply believe in and want to strengthen."
The other co-chair, Anne-Claire Amprou, France's ambassador for global health, also said the draft treaty shows a shared commitment to preventing and protecting everyone. "This is a historic agreement for health security, equity and international solidarity," she said.
