Pandemic to-do list
28 April 2025
When was the last time most of the world actually agreed on something? Two weeks ago, after three years of hard and seemingly hopeless negotiations, 191 member states of the World Health Organisation (WHO) agreed to a treaty on how to prevent, prepare for, and proceed when we encounter the next pandemic.
Each state still needs to ratify the Pandemic Agreement, and then, in case of crisis, actually act on it. Nonetheless, the agreement "has the potential to become a milestone for multilateralism and global solidarity," Germany noted, and it certainly proves that the WHO is alive and kicking, with or without the US.
What's in the treaty? One of its core achievements is the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) system. Any manufacturer who signs up for it will get the newest research from other partners and share their own. In case of a pandemic, they'd have to give 20% of their real-time production of developed vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics to the WHO to distribute, with 10% as a donation.
That's a key promise of solidarity, which could prevent the repeat of vaccine hoarding from Covid-19 times. There's also a prevention framework, under which countries need to develop measures identifying the disease drivers and ensure pathogen surveillance.
"The next pandemic is not a question of if, but of when", WHO's director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, says. In most cases, modern methods of farming or land use, plus globalisation, mean diseases spread from animals to humans, and it is somewhat of a consensus that this was the case with the coronavirus. Densely packed chickens or pigs are a fertile ground for pathogen mutations - animal diseases adapting to infect humans.
 | Zuzanna Stawiska It's hard to say if it's time to pop the champagne yet. In my previous newsroom, which specialised in health issues, the Pandemic Agreement was big news, and in some ways, getting most of the world to concur on a crucial issue is a feat in itself. And yet, the negotiating body's chair is right to say that "now the real work begins to make this agreement a reality." |
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