After two years of arduous discussions, member countries of the World Health Organization (WHO) failed to conclude an international agreement on Thursday, March 28, aimed at better preparing the world for a future pandemic. The ninth and final round of negotiations opened on March 18 and ended Thursday without a final text. Negotiations will resume in May.
“You are not far from reaching an agreement,” said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus as discussions ended at the organization’s headquarters in Geneva. “I still remain hopeful and hope that you will get there,” he said, recalling that “an agreement is a life-saving instrument, not just a piece of paper.”
He urged nations to get back to work to reach a final agreement by the end of May.
Important friction points
The 194 countries meeting within the WHO have decided to develop a binding text to avoid repeating the deadly and costly errors made during the catastrophic management of the Covid-19 epidemic, which revealed to what extent the world was ill-prepared to face a crisis of this magnitude.
Discussions began in February 2022, with countries aiming to formally adopt the text at the next World Health Assembly, which opens on May 27 in Geneva. But after two years and the trauma of the pandemic already fading, significant points of friction remain, the draft agreement remaining riddled with provisional wording in brackets, signaling possible alternatives.
The discussions are all the more difficult because WHO members are used to reaching agreements by consensus, finding common ground, a procedure which usually takes many years. Hope for an agreement is not completely dead, however, and countries must decide whether to allow additional days of negotiations, from April 29 to May 10.
The office of the intergovernmental negotiating body, which is leading the talks, will draft a new text by April 18 and aim to finalize the discussions by May 5. The current draft has grown from 30 pages to almost 100 pages, with proposed amendments. Some participants want the office to reduce it to 20 pages.
Prevention, surveillance and financing
Key topics still under discussion include access to emerging pathogens, better prevention and monitoring of outbreaks, reliable financing and technology transfer to poorer countries.
European countries want more money invested in prevention, while African countries – left behind during Covid – want the know-how and funding but also adequate access to tests, vaccines and other treatments. The United States wants a guarantee of transparency and rapid sharing of data on any outbreak of an unknown disease.
Vaccine nationalism and selfishness, the lack of protective equipment, the exposure and exhaustion of health professionals and the donations of almost expired serum stocks by rich countries to poor countries, under the guise of solidarity, do not are just some of the many dysfunctions revealed by the latest pandemic.
In the opinion of specialists, China also delayed too long, in December 2019, in sharing information on Covid-19 and very quickly it was too late.