Member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) opened a new session of negotiations on Monday on a key element of the pandemic treaty which has blocked its finalization for a year.
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“I won’t pretend that the home stretch will be easy. She won’t be. The remaining differences are real (…), but they are not insurmountable. (…) I therefore ask you to concentrate on what really matters,” declared WHO boss Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at the opening of the debates.
This seventh session of the Intergovernmental Working Group (IWG) is scheduled to last until July 17 to “draft and negotiate” the annex relating to the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System (PABS), according to the WHO.
After more than three years of negotiations, WHO member states reached a historic agreement in May 2025 aimed at better preparing for and fighting against future pandemics, to avoid a repeat of the dysfunctions observed with Covid-19.
Its particular ambition is to guarantee equitable access to health products (vaccines, treatments, screening tests).
But rich countries and developing countries were unable to agree on the central element of the treaty, namely the functioning of the PABS.
The countries therefore decided to grant themselves a new deadline to finalize this annex, without which the global agreement cannot enter into force.
“This multilateral system must enable access and benefit-sharing that is safe, transparent, accountable and based on the principle of equality,” the WHO said in a press release, stressing that the objective is to establish these modalities “by the 80th World Health Assembly, in May 2027”, or even “earlier, during a special session of the World Health Assembly in 2026, for review”.
« Courage »
In mid-June, the head of the WHO and Brazilian President Lula urged G7 members to show the “courage” necessary to allow the treaty to be finalized and to consider “July 17 as a deadline and not as an intermediate step”.
The agreement provides that each laboratory voluntarily participating in PABS guarantees to the WHO, in the event of a pandemic, “rapid access to a targeted percentage of 20% of its real-time production of vaccines, treatments and diagnostic products (…) provided that a minimum of 10% of its production” is made available to the WHO “as a donation” and the remaining percentage “at an affordable price”.
The modalities nevertheless remain to be defined, including the question of the conditions of access to the genetic sequences of pathogens.
The negotiations also stumble on the requirement by developing countries for guarantees for equitable access to vaccines, including outside of pandemics, as well as on the financial contributions that should be made by pharmaceutical laboratories wishing to participate in PABS.
Rich countries, particularly those with large pharmaceutical industries, fear that this mandatory sharing of health products will hamper research and development.
“Significant progress towards this objective” now requires developed countries to “renounce their maximalist positions and adopt a positive and constructive approach”, declared the NGO defending developing countries Third World Network at the opening of the debates.
For its part, the International Federation of the Pharmaceutical Industry (IFPMA) warned against an annex that was “unpractical for research and potentially counterproductive”.
The PABS system “will either encourage innovation or introduce delays and uncertainty that could slow it down,” she considered.
