Geopolitical rifts stall WHO pandemic‑agreement negotiations at 79th World Health Assembly

WHO member states ended the penultimate day of the 79th World Health Assembly on May 22 with pandemic governance still split between formal progress and unresolved politics. The assembly in Geneva agreed to launch a member-state-led process on reforming the global health architecture and asked Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to submit options and recommendations to next year’s assembly. (who.int) WHO’s own materials show the parallel pandemic-agreement track is still unfinished because the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing annex has yet to be negotiated and adopted. (medicaldaily.com) The procedural movement comes a year after the World Health Assembly adopted the WHO Pandemic Agreement on May 20, 2025. That agreement cannot fully open for signature and ratification until the annex on pathogen access and benefit sharing is completed, according to WHO. (who.int) The remaining talks have become a focal point for disputes over equity, sovereignty and financing that governments have not resolved. ### Why are delegates still negotiating if the pandemic agreement was adopted last year? The World Health Assembly adopted the WHO Pandemic Agreement on May 20, 2025, but WHO says a key annex still has to be negotiated before the full pact can move to signature and ratification. That annex covers the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing system, known as PABS, which is meant to link the sharing of pathogen samples and sequence data with fair access to resulting benefits. (who.int) The Intergovernmental Working Group on the WHO Pandemic Agreement was set up to draft that annex as a priority. WHO says the group met six times between July 2025 and March 2026, and lists further meetings for July and September 2026. (who.int) ### What did the assembly actually do on May 22? On May 22, the Health Assembly decided to establish a joint process led by member states, hosted by WHO and involving global health partners, to support reforms of the global health architecture. WHO said the process is meant to develop options and recommendations that maximize “access, impact and equity.” (who.int) WHO’s daily update said member states backed the organization’s central convening and normative role while also acknowledging that the health architecture has not kept pace with the current environment. The same WHO summary listed expanded national sovereignty, contracting health financing, fragmentation and duplication among health actors as part of the problem under discussion. (who.int) ### Where are the main political fault lines? WHO’s description of the unfinished pandemic-agreement work points directly to the hardest issue: how to share pathogens quickly while distributing vaccines, treatments, technology and other benefits on what it calls an equal footing. The agreement also includes language on technology transfer, financing and supply chains, all areas where states have long differed over obligations and cost-sharing. (who.int) Matthew M. Kavanagh, a Georgetown University professor and director of the university’s Center for Global Health Policy and Politics, wrote in Foreign Policy on May 22 that “U.S. dysfunction is undercutting attempts at equality.” Foreign Policy presented that as an argument article, not a diplomatic communique, but it captured a criticism circulating around the talks: that geopolitical distrust is making technical negotiations harder. (who.int) ### What does New York City’s WHO-linked move show? On February 5, 2026, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said it had joined the WHO-coordinated Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, or GOARN, according to Medical Daily. (who.int) The publication said that made New York City the first municipal health department in the United States to formally align with a WHO-affiliated body after the U.S. withdrawal was completed on January 22. GOARN is not WHO membership, but Medical Daily said the network is coordinated by WHO and includes more than 360 technical institutions. Acting Health Commissioner Michelle Morse said New York was joining because it is “a global city with 8.5 million residents and more than 12 million international visitors every year” and needed access to shared public-health information. (foreignpolicy.com) ### What happens next in Geneva and after? WHO says the 79th World Health Assembly runs from May 18 to May 23 in Geneva. The assembly has already asked Tedros to bring a final report on options for transforming the global health architecture to next year’s World Health Assembly, while the intergovernmental working group is scheduled to meet again in July 2026 and September 2026 on the PABS annex. (medicaldaily.com) (who.int)