World Health Assembly adopts Pandemic Agreement, ups funding for WHO
The WHA, made up of World Health Organization (WHO) member
states, is the WHO's decision-making body. Yesterday, the Pandemic Agreement
passed the committee A with 124 voting in favor, none against, and 11
abstaining.
In the making for 3 years, the agreement has been the
subject of intense negotiations by the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body
appointed by WHO member states. In a WHO statement today,
Teodoro Herbosa, MD, secretary of the Philippines Department of Health and
president of this year’s WHA, said, now that the agreement has passed, health
leaders must urgently implement its key elements, which include systems to
ensure more equitable access to life-saving pandemic-related health products.
"As COVID was a once-in-a-lifetime emergency, the WHO
Pandemic Agreement offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build on lessons
learned from that crisis and ensure people worldwide are better protected if a
future pandemic emerges," he said.
The WHO emphasized that the Pandemic Agreement includes
wording clarifying that the agreement doesn't provide the WHO or its leadership
to dictate, order, or proscribe national or domestic laws or impose any
requirements to take specific actions, such as travel bans or vaccine mandates.
In a statement yesterday after committee A passage, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) praised countries and negotiators for advancing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make the world safer. CEPI also said it stands ready to help implement the agreement.
The organization noted, however, that the agreement on its
own won't deliver the level of pandemic preparedness the world urgently needs.
"It will take sustained investment, enduring political commitment and
unprecedented scientific collaboration to create the systemic change needed to
protect not just our own generation, but generations to come," CEPI said.
Matthew Kavanagh, PhD, director of Georgetown
University's Center for Global Health Policy and Politics, said in an
O'Neill Institute statement today
that the Pandemic Agreement's passage by the world's health ministers is
remarkable, given the current geopolitical context, which is colored by
competition and acrimony.
He said it creates new international law that gives new
clarity to declarations of pandemic emergency and establishes a framework for
sharing technology during health emergencies to help avoid inequities seen in
COVID, AIDS, Ebola, and other recent epidemics.
Kavanagh said that, unfortunately, rich countries watered
down some key elements, making them more of a suggestion than a requirement.
"So it's not fully clear whether this new international law will have
impact. That will be decided in how it's implemented," he added.
It's not fully clear whether this new international law
will have impact. That will be decided in how it's implemented.
The United States didn’t participate in final negotiations,
which might have provided a silver lining, Kavanagh said. "With the
current administration seemingly intent on dismantling global public health
efforts, this may be the best-case scenario if the rest of the world can come
together," he said. "In that way, this new agreement is a spot of
light in an otherwise dark geopolitical environment for fighting
pandemics."
Benefit sharing, financing, and supply chain components
Now that WHA has adopted the agreement, the next step is to
start the process to draft and negotiate a Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing
system (PABS) through an Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG), which will be
considered at next year's WHA.
Once the WHA adopts the PABS annex, the agreement will be
open for signature and ratification, including by national legislative bodies.
The agreement will enter force after 60 ratifications.
Member states also asked the IGWG to take the first steps to
set up a financing mechanism for pandemic prevention, preparedness, and
response, as well as a global supply chain and logistics network.
Also, pharmaceutical companies who will participate in the
PABS system will make available to WHO rapid access to 20% of real-time
production of pandemic-related vaccines, diagnostics, and drugs.
Member states approve 20% increase in contributions
In other WHA developments today, member states approved a
20% increase in assessed contributions to the WHO while endorsing its 2026-27
budget, which the WHO said comes on the heels of a similar increase ahead of
its 2024-25 budget and against difficult economic headwinds that countries are
facing at home.
In a statement, WHO
leadership thanked member states for their "profound vote of confidence in
WHO's mission and their commitment to health security and resilience
worldwide."
Given drops in global health funding, the WHO had downsized
the 2026-27 budget by 22%.
The United States is not participating in the WHA, following Donald Trump's January decision to withdraw from the WHO. In a video message aired
at today’s meeting, US Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F.
Kennedy Jr. defended the administration’s decision to withdraw and invited
other health ministers to create new institutions or remodel existing ones that
align with what he said are US ideals.
The United Nations news service expanded on RFK Jr.'s message:
During the high-level segment which preceded the vote, a notable intervention came from the United States which has begun the year-long process of withdrawing from the WHO, and did not take part in the vote.
In a video addressed to the Assembly, US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy excoriated the WHO, accusing the UN agency of having “doubled down with the Pandemic Agreement which will lock in all of the dysfunction of the WHO pandemic response...we're not going to participate in that."
In addition to the non-participation by the Trump Administration, the UN noted the following: 11 countries abstained, including Poland, Israel, Italy, Russia, Slovakia and Iran. Russia explained its abstention this way: "Russia raised the issue of sovereignty as a concern."
