GENEVA (AN) — Talks on a proposed treaty for handling future pandemics stumbled at the hoped-for finish line, prompting an additional round.
Negotiators' plans to wrap up on Thursday were stymied by divisions over issues such as unequal access to vaccines, intellectual property rights and misinformation about the treaty encroaching on nations' sovereignty.
Instead, the World Health Organization's Intergovernmental Negotiating Body decided to add another session in late April. The aim is to wrap up so that May's 77th World Health Assembly can consider a proposed text to set the rules for international cooperation in future public health crises.
"The closing moments of this two-week session could have been with champagne or anything else you use to celebrate, but we all know we are not there yet," said INB co-chair Roland Driece, a Dutch health minister.
"We worked hard, and we did everything we could, we had long intensive discussions, but we have not succeeded in concluding this meeting. That's why we have decided on prolonging our meeting towards the end of April."
WHO set up the INB in Dec. 2021 to craft a binding treaty or instrument to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. This latest session in Geneva was the INB's ninth meeting in more than two years.
“There is clear recognition from governments that the goal of a pandemic agreement is to prepare the world for preventing and responding to future pandemics, built on consensus, solidarity and equity," said INB co-chair Precious Matsoso, a former WHO official and ex-head of South Africa's health agency. "If we fail, we will be failing humanity, including all those who suffered from COVID-19, and those at risk of future pandemics.”
The negotiating text would give WHO access to a fifth of the world's pandemic products for distribution based on public health risks and needs. Nations would commit to monitor threats, improve their ability to respond, and share viral specimens and genome sequences of pathogens with a WHO-administered global respository and database.
Drug makers would be allow to use intellectual property from respository and database to create their own vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.
In return, drug makers would pay into a system to improve nations' preparedness and response, and, during pandemics, contribute 10% of their products free of charge and 10% at not-for-profit prices.
'Considerable paranoia and misinformation'
The text revolves around building more equity into the system, attempting to correct the deep division between wealthy and developing nations that the COVID-19 pandemic laid bare.
But the wealthy nations where the big pharmaceuticals are headquartered remain mostly opposed to developing nations' interests.
"I always keep hope alive, and I'm hopeful that you'll make a deal," WHO's Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the INB. "The treaty is a life-saving instrument, not merely a piece of paper."
While there has been trouble finding consensus among WHO's 194 member countries, Tedros urged negotiators to agree on ways of "operationalizing equity with international law" so no one gets left behind in future pandemics.
Knowledge Ecology International, a Washington-based public interest advocacy organization, urged INB to make the negotiations more transparent by releasing the draft texts with clearly "attributed country positions" attached to them.
"These are reasonable expectations," it said. "There is considerable paranoia and misinformation about the WHO in social media, and the unnecessary secrecy of this negotiation is not helpful."
While the texts are often leaked and some business and citizen groups can afford to attend the negotiations, the general public is locked out, KEI noted. "The lack of transparency," it added, "erodes confidence in the WHO in general and the pandemic agreement in particular."
