W.H.O. member States hold first meeting after Pandemic pact
The aim of the meeting was to formalize next steps on implementing key provisions of the historic legal instrument to make the world safer from future pandemics, it said. The meeting was held late on Thursday.
Brazil's Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes, co-chair of the IGWG Bureau guiding the negotiations, said in a statement that the first meeting was a critical moment in the global effort to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.
The meeting was the first one after the World Health Assembly's landmark adoption on May 20, this year, of the WHO Pandemic Agreement.
The agreement, which is legally binding, came into being because of the challenges faced during the Covid-19 crisis and the disjointed response to it, and aims to ensure countries work together for more effective prevention, preparation, and response to future pandemics.
It will ensure that drugs, therapeutics and vaccines are globally accessible when the next pandemic hits. It requires participating manufacturers to allocate a target of 20% of their vaccines, medicines, and tests to the WHO during a pandemic to ensure poorer countries have access.
'Through the WHO Pandemic Agreement, countries recognized that global collaboration and action, based on equity, are essential for protecting people from future pandemics,' said Tovar. 'Now, through the IGWG, countries are breathing life into the Agreement by establishing the way forward to implement the Agreement's life-saving provisions.'
The Assembly established the IGWG to, as a priority, draft and negotiate an annex to the WHO Pandemic Agreement on Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS).
'This PABS system is intended to enable safe, transparent and accountable access and benefit-sharing for PABS materials and sequence information. The outcome of the IGWG's work on the PABS annex will be submitted to the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly in 2026 for its consideration,' read the statement.
In addition to negotiating the PABS annex, the IGWG has been established to discuss procedural and other matters to prepare for the Conference of the Parties to the pandemic agreement and develop a proposal for the terms of reference for the Coordinating Financial Mechanism.
'Global collaboration is the foundation of an effective response to global threats,' said Matthew Harpur, fellow IGWG bureau co-chair, of the United Kingdom.
The first meeting of the IGWG adopted the body's method of work, timeline of activities leading up to next year's World Health Assembly, and mode of engagement with relevant stakeholders, and elected co-chairs and vice chairs to lead the IGWG process.
'The IGWG also decided to identify experts to provide inputs on the PABS annex and possibly hold an informal briefing before the second meeting of the IGWG, which will be held on 15-19 September 2025,' read the statement.
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