WHO members adopt ‘pandemic agreement' borne out of disjointed Covid response
Sustained applause echoed in a hall in Geneva, Switzerland, hosting the WHO's annual assembly as the measure – debated and devised over three years – passed without opposition.
The treaty guarantees that countries which share virus samples will receive tests, medicines and vaccines.
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Up to 20% of such products would be given to the WHO to ensure poorer countries have some access to them when the next pandemic hits.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has touted the agreement as 'historic' and a sign of multilateralism at a time when many countries are putting national interests ahead of shared values and co-operation.
Dr Esperance Luvindao, Namibia's health minister and the chairwoman of a committee that paved the way for Tuesday's adoption, said that the Covid-19 pandemic inflicted huge costs 'on lives, livelihoods and economies'.
'We – as sovereign states – have resolved to join hands, as one world together, so we can protect our children, elders, frontline health workers and all others from the next pandemic,' Ms Luvindao added. 'It is our duty and responsibility to humanity.'
It's official: the #PandemicAccord is officially adopted by the World Health Assembly!
My warmest congratulations to @WHO Member States for their commitment to keeping their people and the world safer.
What a moment in global health history. Together! pic.twitter.com/DfEHDBrhUB
— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) May 20, 2025
The treaty's effectiveness will face doubts because the United States – which poured billions into speedy work by pharmaceutical companies to develop Covid-19 vaccines — is sitting out, and because countries face no penalties if they ignore it, a common issue in international law.
The US, traditionally the top donor to the UN health agency, was not part of the final stages of the agreement process after the Trump administration announced a US pullout from the WHO and funding to the agency in January.
Many world leaders offered words of support for the UN health agency, and praised the show of multilateralism.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, speaking by video, congratulated WHO and the other member states, calling the accord 'a shared commitment to fight future pandemics with greater co-operation while building a healthy planet'.
Robert Kennedy Jr delivers his video statement about the historic agreement (Magali Girardin/Keystone via AP)
While many supporters praised the 'historic' deal, US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr delivered a scathing critique of the agency, saying the United States was working with unspecified 'like-minded' countries to improve the global health system and called on health ministers in others to join.
'Like many legacy institutions, the WHO has become mired in bureaucratic bloat, entrenched paradigms, conflicts of interest and international power politics,' Mr Kennedy said in a video statement.
'We don't have to suffer the limits of a moribund WHO. Let's create new institutions or revisit existing institutions that are clean, efficient, transparent and accountable.'
The US administration cited the WHO's 'mishandling of Covid-19' and failure to enact needed reforms, and 'China's demonstrated political influence' over science and policy at the agency, the US State Department said in an email.
The US was not sending a delegation for the assembly, which runs through May 27.
'I urge the world's health ministers and the WHO to take our withdrawal from the organisation as a wake-up call,' Mr Kennedy said. 'It isn't that President (Donald) Trump and I have lost interest in international co-operation. Not at all. We just want it to happen in a way that's fair and efficient and transparent for all the member states.'
China, meanwhile, was doubling down its support for WHO — both politically and financially.
Vice Premier Liu Guozhong said 'all sides need to firmly support the WHO to play a central co-ordinating in global health governance, (and) support WHO to perform its duty in an independent, professional and science-based manner'.
China, he said through a translator, 'will provide an additional quota of financial support to the WHO that can add up to 500 million dollars (£374 million) in the coming five years', without specifying. It was not immediately clear whether that amounted to a new financial commitment from Beijing.
The United States had been set to contribute more than 700 million dollars (£523 million) to the current 2024-2025 budget, while China was poised to chip in more than 200 million dollars (£149 million), according to the UN health agency's website.
French President Emmanuel Macron said 'some believe they can do without science', an apparent allusion to US funding cuts for research.
'Not only will that harm the health of us all, but it's first of all the population of those who are taking a step back, in a way, who will be in real danger in the face of emerging pathogens that they wouldn't see coming,' Mr Macron told the assembly by video.
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