WHO pact stalls over pathogen sharing

WHO member states came to the 79th World Health Assembly expecting to settle the last unfinished piece of the pandemic agreement and did not get there. Negotiators again failed to agree on the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing annex, known as PABS, leaving the accord adopted in May 2025 still unable to open for signature. (hindustantimes.com) The dispute sits inside Article 12 of the WHO pandemic agreement. (apps.who.int) That provision is meant to create a system for the rapid sharing of pathogens with pandemic potential and, on “equal footing,” the fair sharing of benefits arising from their use, including vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics. (hindustantimes.com) WHO had already warned in March that negotiators needed more time. On March 28, the organization said member states would resume talks in late April ahead of consideration by the World Health Assembly in May, while acknowledging “remaining differences” on issues including how benefits should be defined and distributed and what contractual arrangements would govern the system. (hindustantimes.com) ### Why is one annex holding up the whole pact? The May 20, 2025 resolution adopting the WHO pandemic agreement made the sequence explicit. The Health Assembly said the agreement would open for signature only after adoption of the annex described in Article 12. (apps.who.int) The House of Commons Library, in a briefing updated after the agreement’s adoption, said the treaty would not open for signature until that annex was adopted and that entry into force would then require 60 ratifications. ### What are countries actually fighting over? WHO’s March 28 note listed the core unresolved questions. Negotiators were still debating how benefits from shared pathogens should be defined and distributed, the contractual terms underpinning the system, and governance rules needed to make it work “effectively, transparently and in the public interest.” (apps.who.int) (who.int) The draft annex text shows why those issues are sensitive. It says the system must recognize states’ sovereign rights over biological resources while also ensuring rapid sharing of pathogen materials and sequence information and fair, equitable benefit-sharing from any resulting products. (commonslibrary.parliament.uk) Hindustan Times reported that the impasse reflects tension between developed and developing countries. According to the report, poorer countries fear sending samples into a global system without firm guarantees that vaccines, tests or treatments developed from them will come back on equitable terms. (who.int) ### Why is this coming up again now? The 79th World Health Assembly was supposed to be the moment for adoption of the annex. WHO member states had extended talks in March and resumed them from April 27 to May 1 to try to bridge the gaps before the Geneva meeting. (apps.who.int) Reuters reported on May 1 that member states had already extended the talks on pathogen-sharing rules, casting doubt on when the pandemic treaty could come into effect. That extension carried into the Assembly, where no final consensus emerged. ### What do current outbreaks have to do with it? (hindustantimes.com) Helen Clark, the former New Zealand prime minister and a pandemic preparedness expert, said this week that ongoing hantavirus and Ebola outbreaks show the world is still not prepared to protect all 8 billion people. Firstpost reported that Clark said health systems that fail to address known endemic risks will be poorly placed to detect the next novel threat. (who.int) WHO’s own description of the PABS system ties those warnings to the negotiations. The organization says the annex is a core component of the agreement because it is meant to link fast pathogen sharing to access to the vaccines, diagnostics and therapeutics developed from that sharing. (usnews.com) ### What happens next? The next formal step is more negotiation. Hindustan Times reported that member states had agreed to continue under the Open-Ended Intergovernmental Working Group, while the WHO process already in place provides the forum for member states to keep trying to finalize the annex text. (firstpost.com) The agreement itself cannot move to signature in Geneva and later at U.N. headquarters in New York until the Health Assembly adopts the Article 12 annex, according to the 2025 resolution. After that, it would still need 60 ratifications to enter into force. (apps.who.int) (hindustantimes.com) (who.int)