After two years of arduous talks, the member countries of the World Health Organization (WHO) failed yesterday, Thursday, to reach an international agreement aimed at better preparing the world for a future pandemic.
The 194 countries that gathered within it WHERE decided to draft a binding text to avoid a repeat of the deadly and costly mistakes made in the management of the pandemic COVID-19which revealed the extent to which the world was unprepared to deal with a crisis of this magnitude.
The ninth and final round of negotiations began on March 18 and ended yesterday without a final text. “You are not far from an agreement,” WHO Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the conclusion of talks at the organization’s headquarters in Geneva. “I continue to hold out hope and hope that you will succeed,” he added, reminding that an “agreement is a tool that saves lives and not just a piece of paper.” The head of the WHO appealed to countries to get back to work to reach a final agreement by the end of May.
Talks began in February 2022 with the goal of the organization’s member countries formally adopting an agreement at the next World Health Assembly, which begins on May 27 in Geneva. But two years on and with the trauma of the pandemic already receding, significant points of friction remain and the draft agreement remains littered with tentative wording in parentheses that suggest possible alternatives.
The talks are made even more difficult by the fact that WHO members tend to reach agreements by consensus, finding common ground, and this process usually takes years.
Hope for a deal is not entirely lost, however, as countries will decide whether to agree to additional days of negotiations, from April 29 to May 10. The office of the intergovernmental negotiating body, which is leading the negotiations, will draw up a new draft agreement by April 18 at the latest and will work to conclude the talks by May 5.
The key issues still under negotiation are mainly access to information on emerging pathogens, better prevention and better surveillance of outbreaks, reliable financing and the transfer of know-how to the poorest countries.
European countries want more money invested in prevention, while African countries—left behind during COVID-19—want expertise and funding, but also adequate access to tests, vaccines and other treatments. The US, for its part, wants a guarantee of transparency and immediate data exchange for any outbreak of an unknown disease.
According to the protothema, “vaccine nationalism” and vaccine selfishness, lack of protective equipment, exposure and exhaustion of health professionals, and donations of near-expired vaccine stocks from rich countries to poor ones under the guise of of solidarity, are just some of the many dysfunctions brought to light by the recent pandemic.
According to experts, China was too late in December 2019 to share information regarding COVID-19, and soon it was too late. Without an agreement, “we will experience the same inequities, the same lack of coordination, the same avoidable loss of life and livelihoods, and the same social, economic and political upheaval as seen with COVID-19,” she warned per week the secretary general of the WHO.
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