GENEVA, Switzerland — Countries reconvened on Monday in a bid to finalize a landmark global agreement on handling future pandemics, with the specter of mpox, Marburg and H5N1 adding fresh urgency to seal a deal.
After more than two years of talks, hopes are high of completing an accord by November 15, though the heart of the document — how to share pathogens and vaccines — is set to be worked out later.
In December 2021, fearing a repeat of the devastation wrought by Covid-19 — which killed millions of people, crippled health systems and crashed economies — the World Health Organization’s 194 member states agreed to draft an accord on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.
The emergence of a new strain of mpox, the deadly Marburg virus outbreak in Rwanda and the spread of H5N1 bird flu in recent months have given the talks a jolt.
“You face a balancing act between concluding your work in a timely manner and reaching the strongest possible text. I urge you not to allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told country negotiators as the talks round opened.
“Time is not on our side. Covid is still circulating; mpox is a global health emergency; we have an outbreak of Marburg and H5N1 spillover. The next pandemic will not wait.”
Equity battle
Adding to the momentum, G20 health ministers meeting in Rio de Janeiro last Thursday voiced support for concluding an agreement that is “ambitious, balanced, effective and fit-for-purpose, including equitable access to medical countermeasures during pandemics.”
Many of the draft text’s 37 articles were concluded during the 11 previous rounds of talks.
The key outstanding section revolves around the sharing of pathogens detected within countries and, subsequently, of vaccines and other pandemic-fighting products derived from that knowledge.
It has turned into a stand-off between wealthier nations with major pharmaceutical sectors and poorer countries that felt cut adrift during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The roadmap on the table would defer thrashing out how the proposed Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System (PABS) would work in practice until after the broader agreement has been concluded.
Sangeeta Shashikant, the Third World Network NGO’s intellectual property and development coordinator, said many of the PABS proposals put forward by developing countries had been “diluted and deleted.”
“The feeling is there is really no meaningful deliverable” that would overturn the inequities of Covid-19, she told journalists. “The negotiation has kind of lost its purpose.”
The 12th round of talks comes after the world’s biggest nature conservation conference closed in Colombia on Saturday after hitting a similar jam, ending without agreement on a roadmap to ramp up funding for species protection, as poor and rich country blocs haggled.
Consensus the ‘magic bullet’
The pandemic agreement talks are being held at the WHO headquarters in Geneva.
The International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations said they wanted a pandemic agreement “that works, addressing the needs of countries while enabling the private sector to innovate.”
“Intellectual property needs to be respected, and transfer of technology must always be voluntary and on mutually-agreed terms,” the group insisted.
Countries’ representatives spelled out their positions, with some opposed to rushing for the sake of it.
Malaysia, speaking for a group of developing countries known as the Group for Equity bloc, said “major improvement is still desperately needed in many areas.”
“We cannot leave all the critical details for the PABS system for the future,” the group said, demanding that at least 20 percent of real-time production of vaccines, tests and treatments go to developing countries.
Tanzania, on behalf of 48 African countries, said: “We cannot accept an agreement not founded in equity.” Indonesia’s negotiator said a pandemic accord that simply preserves the status quo was unacceptable, as “empty promises will not save lives.”
Eswatini said there was no point rushing to conclude an agreement that is “not worth the paper it is written on,” while China insisted “quality should not be sacrificed for the sake of time.”
Germany’s representative said the talks needed to speed up and “focus on the achievable.”
“Consensus is the magic bullet here,” he said.
“The dish needs to be tasteful to all of us. We all need to eat it in the end.”
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