WHO extends pandemic treaty talks

The World Health Organization’s member states agreed this week to give themselves more time to finish the last unresolved part of last year’s pandemic agreement: the rules for sharing pathogens and the benefits that come from them. The decision, taken during the World Health Assembly in Geneva, keeps negotiations alive for another year after countries missed their original deadline. WHO said the extension applies to the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing, or PABS, annex, which is needed to complete the agreement’s operating framework. The delay leaves in place a broader pandemic agreement that the World Health Assembly adopted on May 20, 2025, but without a finalized system for how countries would provide pathogen samples and data in return for access to vaccines, tests and treatments developed from them. WHO has described that annex as a core part of the pact. ### Why are countries still stuck on one annex a year after the deal was adopted? (who.int) Article 12 is the main fault line. The provision deals with access to pandemic-related health products and the conditions attached to sharing pathogens through the proposed PABS system. Health Policy Watch reported that lower- and middle-income countries argued the text could not be allowed to preserve existing commercial advantages for manufacturers that receive pathogen materials. (who.int) Pakistan made that objection explicit at the assembly. Health Policy Watch reported that Adeel Khokhar of Pakistan warned negotiators against language that would protect “the commercial privileges of a handful of manufacturers” and said efforts to weaken Article 12 would be unacceptable. ### What is the PABS annex supposed to do? (healthpolicy-watch.news) The WHO says the PABS annex is meant to set the framework for how pathogens with pandemic potential are shared and how resulting benefits are distributed more equitably. In practice, that means countries that provide samples or sequence data want clearer guarantees that they will not again be left behind when vaccines, diagnostics and treatments are produced. (healthpolicy-watch.news) The dispute reflects arguments that ran through the original pandemic treaty talks after COVID-19, when many poorer countries said wealthy governments and drugmakers cornered early supplies of vaccines and other tools. WHO’s description of the agreement says the instrument was designed to make future pandemic prevention, preparedness and response more equitable. ### What did governments actually agree to this week? (who.int) On May 1, WHO said member states had agreed that additional time was needed to finalize the annex, after a negotiating round in Geneva failed to produce a finished text for the assembly. Health Policy Watch reported on May 19 that all member states backed the extension in Committee A of the World Health Assembly. (who.int) The extension does not scrap the process. WHO said countries had made progress on the annex and would continue work on the framework rather than force a vote on an unfinished compromise. ### Why is this happening during active outbreaks? The 79th World Health Assembly opened on May 18 under pressure from current health emergencies as well as treaty politics. (who.int) UN News reported that Ebola outbreaks in Central Africa, a hantavirus-related cruise ship evacuation and funding cuts were hanging over the meeting in Geneva. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director-general, told the assembly that countries had still made progress through last year’s pandemic agreement and amendments to the International Health Regulations, according to UN News. (who.int) But the unfinished annex shows that the hardest bargaining point — how to trade pathogen access for real product access — remains unsettled. That characterization is an inference drawn from the status of the negotiations and the objections recorded at the assembly. (news.un.org) ### What happens next? The next formal step is more intergovernmental negotiation on the PABS annex under the process already set up by the World Health Assembly. WHO said member states would continue trying to finalize the annex so the pandemic agreement can be fully operationalized. Any final text would still need to come back to member states for approval at a future World Health Assembly session in Geneva. (news.un.org) Until then, the 2025 pandemic agreement stands without its last major annex completed. (who.int 1) (who.int 2)