After nearly three-and-a-half years and 13 rounds of meetings, member-states of the World Health Organization (WHO) have agreed on measures to prevent, prepare for and respond to pandemics. On April 16, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body finalised a proposal for the WHO Pandemic Agreement. The draft, described as a “generational accord to make the world safer”, is now ready to be adopted next month by the World Health Assembly. Though more limited in scope than the ambitious one first proposed by WHO, it is still a remarkable achievement considering the varied priorities and compulsions for the Global North and the developing countries, especially with the U.S. not a part of WHO since January. While the developed countries baulked on firm commitments to sharing diagnostics, treatments, vaccines and technology transfers, developing countries hesitated to commit to sharing pathogen samples and genome sequences without assured access to tests, treatments and vaccines developed using the shared material. The disagreements are reminiscent of how Indonesia turned the spotlight on the inequitable H5N1 sample sharing mechanism in the mid-2000s in the absence of equitable and affordable access to vaccines developed using its samples.

The first article that all countries agreed upon was the commitment to protect health-care workers better. The most remarkable achievement was in getting every country to agree on the pathogen access and benefit sharing system. Developing countries that share pathogen samples and genome sequence data are guaranteed to get access to any diagnostics, vaccines or treatments that are developed using the samples/data. Negotiations on how countries will share samples and vaccines/drugs are set to continue. Pharmaceutical companies have committed to donate 10% of their production to WHO and offer up to another 10% at affordable prices. The COVID-19 pandemic brought the inequitable vaccine distribution to the fore. Many developed countries stockpiled vaccines while many developing countries, especially those in Africa, were left waiting for vaccines. The case of vaccine manufacturers sharing the technology with developing countries during a pandemic has also been sorted out. The main debate centered around the conditions under which this transfer will happen. Countries have agreed that technology transfer will be on “mutually agreed terms”, and not “voluntary” as pharma companies wanted it to be. According to the journal, Nature, besides “promoting equitable access to health products, the treaty underlines that countries should ‘promote and otherwise facilitate or incentivise’ the exchange of technology and know-how” that will enable developing countries to make their own vaccines.