Member states of the World Health Organization recently forged a draft agreement to help make the world safer from pandemics.
The proposal, which will be considered at the upcoming World Health Assembly in May, aims to strengthen global collaboration on prevention, preparedness and response to future pandemic threats. Officials said the collaboration started in December 2021 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. At that time WHO member states established the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) to draft an agreement that would strengthen the members’ pandemic response.
After many rounds of informal and intersessional negotiations, as well as 13 formal rounds of meetings, the INB finalized a proposal for the WHO Pandemic Agreement.
“The nations of the world made history in Geneva today,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, 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. I thank WHO’s Member States, and their negotiating teams, for their foresight, commitment and tireless work. We look forward to the World Health Assembly’s consideration of the agreement and – we hope – its adoption.”
The proposals include establishing a pathogen access and benefit sharing system; taking concrete measures on pandemic prevention; building diverse research and development capacities; facilitating the transfer of technology and knowledge to produce pandemic-related health products; establishing and mobilizing a skilled, trained and multidisciplinary national and global health emergency workforce; and establishing a global supply chain and logistics network, among other things.
The United States was not a part of the INB. President Donald Trump withdrew from the World Health Organization on his first day in office, Jan. 20, 2025.