WHO Seventy-ninth Assembly updates May 21

The World Health Organization’s May 21 update from the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly showed a meeting still moving on several tracks at once: formal decisions on tuberculosis and liver disease, a strategic roundtable on health misinformation, and continued work around unfinished pandemic-governance business in Geneva. (who.int) WHO said delegates on May 21 endorsed a decision asking Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to prepare a post-2030 tuberculosis strategy for submission to the Eighty-first World Health Assembly in 2028. (who.int) The same daily update said member states approved a resolution recognizing steatotic liver disease as a growing noncommunicable disease burden and discussed implementation of the current End TB Strategy. (who.int) WHO’s Assembly page says the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly is running from May 18 to May 23, 2026, in Geneva, with daily media notes and webcast proceedings. ### What did WHO say happened on May 21? WHO’s May 21 note for media highlighted two formal health-policy items: tuberculosis and steatotic liver disease. The agency said delegates backed development of a post-2030 TB strategy, to be prepared with member states and other stakeholders and presented in 2028. (who.int) The same update said delegates also approved a resolution on steatotic liver disease, formerly referred to as fatty liver disease. WHO said the condition affects an estimated 1.7 billion people worldwide and asked member states to integrate it into national noncommunicable disease strategies, strengthen primary care, and expand surveillance, screening and management. (who.int) ### Where does the pandemic accord stand now? WHO’s own pandemic-agreement questions-and-answers page says the agreement itself was adopted on May 20, 2025, at the Seventy-eighth World Health Assembly. But WHO also says that resolution created an Intergovernmental Working Group to finish the remaining work so the agreement can be opened for signature and ratification. (who.int) The unresolved piece is the Article 12 annex on Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing, or PABS. The 2025 Assembly resolution says the agreement can open for signature only after that annex is adopted by the Health Assembly, and the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response said on April 26 that the annex is essential because it would “open the Agreement as a whole for signing and ratification.” (who.int) ### Why were negotiations described as still active this week? WHO’s May 21 daily update did not frame the day around a final pandemic-accord breakthrough. Instead, the agency’s Assembly pages show a continuing sequence of daily updates through the week, and outside advocacy tied to the negotiations pointed to unfinished technical work on the PABS annex before the legal instrument can move to signature. (who.int) That means the Assembly was handling both immediate agenda items and longer-running governance work at the same time. WHO’s pages describe the Assembly as the place where member states set global health policy, while the pandemic-agreement documentation shows the legal process still depends on the annex step required under Article 12 and Article 31. (apps.who.int) ### What was Helen Clark warning about in Geneva? Helen Clark, former New Zealand prime minister and co-chair of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, told AFP in Geneva that recent Ebola and hantavirus outbreaks showed both progress and remaining gaps. Firstpost, citing AFP, reported Clark said “the new international health regulations are working” in the response phase, but added that “those basic issues of surveillance, early detection… We’re not there yet.” (who.int) Clark pointed to the Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the hantavirus outbreak linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship. She said the problem was “upstream” risk awareness and preparedness, asking how the Ebola outbreak could spread for weeks before the needed testing identified the variant. (who.int) ### What else was on the May 21 agenda besides outbreak preparedness? WHO said May 21 also included a Strategic Roundtable on health mis- and disinformation, bringing together government officials, international organizations, scientists, civil society, youth, private-sector representatives and media participants. That placed misinformation alongside disease-specific agenda items in the day’s official summary. (firstpost.com) WHO’s tuberculosis update also included a benchmark the agency highlighted for delegates: expanded TB treatment saved an estimated 83 million lives between 2000 and 2024. At the same time, WHO said global targets under the End TB Strategy and the 2030 sustainable development agenda remain off track. (firstpost.com) ### What comes next after May 21? WHO’s World Health Assembly page says the Seventy-ninth Assembly runs through May 23, 2026, in Geneva, and the organization is publishing daily media updates as proceedings continue. The next formal milestone for the pandemic agreement remains adoption of the Article 12 annex, because WHO’s 2025 resolution says only then can the agreement open for signature at WHO headquarters in Geneva and later at U.N. headquarters in New York. (who.int 1) (who.int 2)