After three years of intensive negotiations, world leaders have agreed on a strategy which could help prevent or mitigate future pandemics.
International negotiations on the agreement started at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The agreement sets out the principles of a better coordinated international response to any future health crisis: for example, countries will pledge to monitor infectious diseases to prevent pandemics.
In particular, the finalised agreement paves the way for a new Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) system which could see pharma companies get faster access to the pathogens and genetic sequences needed to create new vaccines and tests.
Companies that sign up to the voluntary system will share a portion of their real-time production of vaccines or tests with the WHO - 10% as a donation and 10% at “affordable prices”. Distribution of these products would be carried out depending on the public health risk and need - with particular attention on the needs of developing countries, the WHO said.
Once work on PABS is done, the agreement will be open for signature – and once 60 nations have signed it, it comes into force. Another element, the Global Supply Chain and Logistics Network seeks to remove barriers and ensure equitable, timely and affordable access to pandemic-related health products for countries in need.
Daniela Manno, Clinical Assistant Professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said that pandemics do not respect borders and COVID-19 demonstrated how quickly infectious diseases can spread and underscored the importance of international co-operation for early detection and response.
“Adopting this first global agreement on pandemic preparedness and response is a major milestone. It signals a global commitment to avoiding the fragmented and unequal responses of past crises, and to promoting greater solidarity and equity in future health emergencies,” Manno said.
Pandemic preparedness is still one of the most pressing challenges in global health, and the fact that we have faced a pandemic recently does not make it any less likely that we are about to face another warned Professor Alice Norton, Principal Investigator at the University of Oxford’s Pandemic Sciences Institute. “Ultimately the Pandemic Agreement will be judged by its implementation, but it heralds a welcome vital global message on the importance of pandemic preparedness and response,” she said.
UK Health Security Agency chief executive Jenny Harries said international co-operation and collaboration must be at the heart of pandemic preparedness strategy. “This is also good news for scientific innovation and the UK’s world-leading life sciences industry, opening the door to enabling high quality vaccines to be delivered faster in the next pandemic,” she said.
One important omission from the countries involved however will be the US which has withdrawn from the WHO. US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr sent a video address to the meeting, saying the WHO had become mired in “bureaucratic bloat, entrenched paradigms, conflicts of interest and international power politics.”
Kennedy said the Pandemic Agreement will “lock-in all of the dysfunctions of the WHO pandemic response,” and said: “Well, we're not going to participate in that. We need to reboot the whole system.”
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