Latest news with #PABS
Indian Express
22-05-2025
- Health
- Indian Express
Can WHO's Pandemic Agreement launch a new era of global health cooperation?
The World Health Organisation (WHO) achieved a historic 'first' on May 20 at the 78th World Health Assembly (WHA) — the Pandemic Agreement. It was announced on the fifth anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic after three intensive years of negotiations by the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB). It is the second international legal agreement negotiated under Article 19 (which outlines the rights and obligations of the members) of the WHO Constitution after the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in 2003. India was an active member through this process and Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the WHA. Calling for a 'a shared commitment to fight future pandemics with greater cooperation,' he emphasised on addressing health inequities and particularly those of the Global South. Earlier, on May 19, the member states adopted the Pandemic Agreement resolution with 124 countries voting in favour and none objecting. The 11 abstentions included Iran, Israel, Italy, Poland, Russia, and Slovakia. The USA was a 'no-show'; earlier, 26 Republican governors had released a joint statement in August 2024 saying: 'The World Health Organisation is attempting one world control over health policy with their new 'Pandemic Agreement.' Twenty-four Republican Governors expressed concern over this development in a joint letter in May 2024. Put simply, Republican Governors will not comply.' The Biden Administration had participated in the negotiations and approved the second draft in October, 2023. The WHO Pandemic Agreement spells out the principles, approaches, and tools for better international coordination to strengthen the global health architecture for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response including equitable and timely access to vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics. It is clarified that the WHO (through this agreement) will not 'direct, order, alter or otherwise prescribe the national and/or domestic law;' in other words, a pandemic will not in any manner undermine the sovereignty of a member state. The agreement is also in alignment with the amended International Health Regulations (IHR) adopted in last year's WHA to strengthen international rules to better detect, prevent and respond to outbreaks. What happens next? Beyond the euphoria of this 'watershed' agreement the devil will be in the details that lie ahead. The FCTC took two years to come into force. As a key next step to the agreement's implementation, an Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) will draft and negotiate an annex to establish a Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing system (PABS) that will be considered by the next year's WHA. The agreement will only then be open for signature and consideration of nearly 60 ratifications to come into force, including those by the national legislative bodies. The IGWG has another important task — setting up of the Coordinating Financial Mechanism for pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response. The PABS System will link and enable the industry and companies to have access to and be able to utilise pathogen samples and sequence data with benefit-sharing obligations. The private parties accessing materials through PABS may be required to pay contributions to WHO, enter into contractual commitment to share a percentage of pandemic-related products with WHO in case of a pandemic (the target is 20 per cent, of which 10 per cent is a donation) and, potentially, agree to a wide range of non-financial benefit-sharing that include technology transfer, non-exclusive licensing, affordable pricing and global access commitments. The national Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) provisions will also need to align with the Agreement; India will likely need to amend the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 accordingly. Alongside, the Global Supply Chain and Logistics Network (GSCL), a worldwide system that connects all the businesses and processes involved in moving goods from their origin to the consumer, will play a catalytic role to 'enhance, facilitate, and work to remove barriers and ensure equitable, timely, rapid, safe, and affordable access to pandemic-related health products.' There are several significant but fuzzy domains — enforcement mechanisms, funding pathways and, above all, a synergistic and non-contentious sharing of products and interventions by advanced economies with less endowed countries who are expected to contribute data including genetic sequencing of pathogens. The One Health (OH) approach is a central doctrine in the Pandemic Agreement. For each member state this entails 'developing, implementing, and reviewing relevant national policies and strategies that reflect a One Health approach across the human-animal-environment interface.' India's National One Health Mission (NOHM) with an integrated framework encompassing 13 government ministries/ departments is a step in the right direction but a work in progress. The soul of OH is a multi-disciplinary approach and multi-sectoral collaborations that call for synergy across field sciences, analytical approaches, and laboratory science; the critical barriers are in the realm of politics and governance, though, and not technical. Actors with diverse sectoral and disciplinary expertise are required to work across ministries/ departments and navigate tacit institutional hierarchies and allocate leadership roles. A critical determinant is the extent to which these resonate with high-level political agendas and are amenable to buy-in across sectors. Accountability, transparency, and trust are essential ingredients but can be elusive. The key to success will be consultative and collaborative leadership that promotes innovation, adaptation, and flexibility in terms of political, financial, and administrative accountability. The writer is professor and chairperson, Centre of Social Medicine & Community Health, JNU, and member of the One Health Working Group, World Federation of Public Health Associations
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
21-05-2025
- Health
- Business Standard
New WHO agreement on pandemic response: What's it is and what it will do
With lessons from Covid-19, WHO members back treaty to improve equity, vaccine access, and emergency coordination during future outbreaks Barkha Mathur New Delhi World Health Organization (WHO) member states have adopted a landmark agreement aimed at addressing the gaps exposed during the Covid-19 pandemic. The WHO Pandemic Agreement is designed to ensure faster, fairer and more coordinated global responses during future health emergencies. What is the WHO Pandemic Agreement? The WHO Pandemic Agreement is the first legally binding international accord to comprehensively address pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response. Adopted under Article 19 of the WHO Constitution, it promotes data sharing, equitable access to resources and greater cooperation between countries during health crises. The agreement text states that member countries recognise 'that the international spread of disease is a global threat… that calls for the widest possible international and regional collaboration… while reaffirming the principle of the sovereignty of States in addressing public health matters.' What are the goals of the WHO pandemic treaty? The agreement outlines five primary objectives: Ensure equitable access to pandemic-related vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics Strengthen collaboration through data and pathogen sharing Support resilient health systems, especially in low-resource settings Promote knowledge and technology transfer for local production Establish sustainable funding mechanisms for rapid response How will countries benefit from the pandemic agreement? Countries that sign and ratify the agreement will be entitled to: Rapid access to 20 per cent of global pandemic-related health product output — 10 per cent as donations, 10 per cent at affordable prices A Global Supply Chain and Logistics Network (GSCL) for fair resource distribution A coordinated financial mechanism for emergency response from day one of a pandemic Access to shared technologies and production knowledge, especially in developing countries What is the WHO Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System (PABS)? The Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System (PABS), still under negotiation, will govern how countries share biological materials and genome sequences and ensure fair return benefits like vaccines and diagnostics. The PABS annex will be finalised for consideration at the 2026 World Health Assembly. The treaty also adopts a 'One Health' approach, acknowledging the link between human, animal and environmental health. What happens next? The agreement is now open for signature and ratification. It will become binding once ratified by 60 countries. Member states are expected to: Begin aligning national laws with the agreement Engage in the development of the PABS annex Support WHO-led efforts to strengthen health systems, particularly in developing nations Consider early ratification to expedite the treaty's entry into force How will the agreement promote equity in vaccine distribution? The agreement directly addresses vaccine inequity, a major issue during the Covid-19 pandemic. Pharmaceutical manufacturers will be required to reserve: 10 per cent of production for WHO-led donations 10 per cent at reduced prices for distribution to low-income nations The agreement also discourages vaccine hoarding and promotes timely and transparent supply allocation to vulnerable populations. What did WHO say about the significance of the treaty? 'The world is safer today thanks to the leadership, collaboration and commitment of our Member States to adopt the historic WHO Pandemic Agreement,' said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement. He added: 'The Agreement is a victory for public health, science and multilateral action. It will ensure we, collectively, can better protect the world from future pandemic threats. It is also a recognition by the international community that our citizens, societies and economies must not be left vulnerable to again suffer losses like those endured during Covid-19.'
Gulf Today
21-05-2025
- Health
- Gulf Today
WHO Assembly approves Pandemic Agreement
There have been many questions about how well or how badly the World Health Organisation (WHO) had responded to the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020-2021 even as it spread like wildfire from China's Wuhan first to Italy and Iran, and then spread to other countries in Europe and from there to the United States and other countries in North and South America. While the economically advanced countries and the big global pharmaceutical companies located in these countries were able to get a breakthrough Covid vaccine, and speedily made available to people at large, most of the poor countries were left totally vulnerable and without the financial means to access the vaccines. There was also the issue that the governments of advanced economies refused to share the vaccines until their own needs were met. So, the big pharma firms could not see their vaccine where they wanted to. The WHO had however tried to organise relief, and countries like India, UAE and others tried to share the vaccines. Learning from the difficulties it had faced as a world organisation and responsible to the people of all countries, especially the poorer ones in places like Africa, during a global medical emergency of the Covid kind, WHO had been deliberating on the issue of how to help the most vulnerable who are not in a position to access the medicines and the finances to cope with the disaster. So, the WHO has come up with a plan to enable cooperation among member-countries and the big pharma companies. It has been called the Pandemic Agreement and the WHO Assembly had passed the agreement on Monday. It starts with the caveat that the agreement will not in any way be imposed on a country where the national laws will prevail. This is to acknowledge the principle of national sovereignty of each of the member-countries. Dr. Teodora Herbosa, Secretary of the Philippines Department of Health and present president of the WHO Assembly, said, 'Now that the Agreement has been brought to life, we must all act with the same urgency to implement its critical elements, including systems to ensure equitable access to life-saving pandemic-related health products.' The Agreement lays stress on ways and means to closer global cooperation in the wake of a pandemic in the future. Herbosa says that relevant lessons from Covid-19 have been drawn in drawing up plans for a future emergency. The Agreement as it stands now is incomplete. The annex, called the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing System (PABS), needs to be negotiated by the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG), and it would need to be passed in the WHO Assembly next year. The Agreement with the PABS annex will then need to be ratified by each of the 138 countries. The member-countries have asked the IGWG to set up a Coordination Financial Mechanism for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, and the Global Supply Chain and Logistics Network (GSCL) which will help bring down the barriers and facilitate access to pandemic-related life-saving drugs. The point of cheer is that all members of WHO had agreed the need to stand with each other, cooperate with each other at the time of a global emergency like the Covid. The IGWG now has to work out the mechanisms of making the agreement, which includes PABS. During Covid, WHO was only able o rustle up help in an ad hoc fashion, and it had to depend on the generosity of the member-countries. The Pandemic Agreement formally binds all the member-countries to come to the aid of WHO, which will in turn see to it that help reaches the poor and vulnerable countries.
Hindustan Times
21-05-2025
- Health
- Hindustan Times
How to fight the next pandemic, without America
HEARTFELT APPLAUSE greeted the adoption on May 20th of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Pandemic Agreement, a treaty that commits governments to be more responsible and less selfish when future pandemics emerge. There was doubtless an edge of relief to the clapping. After three years of fierce argument, an overwhelming majority of health ministers and officials from over 130 countries—but not America, which is leaving the WHO and boycotting the treaty—voted to approve the text. To cheerleaders, this was hopeful applause. The WHO boss, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, congratulated governments on a 'victory for public health, science and multilateral action'. Opponents of the new pandemic agreement, who include the Trump administration but also populist politicians in Europe and elsewhere, might call those clapping sinister. An executive order issued on Mr Trump's first day in office announced America's withdrawal from the WHO and from negotiations to craft the new pandemic treaty. The order added that America would not be bound by amendments to international health regulations agreed on in 2024. Those changes, which tighten virus-surveillance and reporting obligations on governments, were demanded by American negotiators during the Biden administration. Mr Trump accuses the WHO of mismanaging the covid-19 pandemic under China's influence, and of demanding too much money from America. The pandemic treaty has sparked wild if vague claims in several countries. In 2024 a fringe candidate for America's presidency called the pandemic agreement a power-grab by 'international bureaucrats and their bosses at the billionaire boys club in Davos' that tramples Americans' constitutional rights. Alas for the WHO, that long-shot candidate, Robert F. Kennedy junior, is now Mr Trump's health secretary. In Britain, a right-wing political leader, Nigel Farage, falsely charges that the pandemic treaty will allow the WHO to impose lockdowns 'over the heads of our elected national governments'. In fact, the treaty explicitly reaffirms the sovereign authority of national governments. Was the applause in Geneva naive? Several times talks nearly collapsed, as bold promises made by world leaders during the covid-19 pandemic ran into long-standing divisions between high- and low-income countries. Worryingly, a year or two of hard wrangling still lie ahead, as governments hammer out the details of a political, scientific and commercial bargain at the heart of the treaty, known as the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing system (PABS). That compact must balance the interests of very different places: on the one hand, the developing countries where many new viruses emerge; on the other, the wealthier nations where advanced vaccines and treatments are typically discovered. Success is not a given. For PABS to save lives, some poor or struggling governments will need to step up surveillance of remote rural regions where people live among domestic and wild animals, and which create conditions that favour the spread of viruses into human hosts. They must report troubling discoveries swiftly and share pathogen samples with foreign scientists, even at the risk of suffering travel bans that bring trade and tourism to a halt. In return for free and rapid access to those same pathogens, some of the world's most powerful governments and drug firms must commit to hand to the WHO, in real time, 20% of the vaccines, therapies and diagnostic tests they produce to fight any new scourge. The politics of inequality nearly derailed the process. With reason, delegates from the global south accused rich countries of taking pathogens found among their populations, using them to create life-saving vaccines and drugs, then hoarding those same miracle cures for rich-world customers. Some developing countries called for cash payments for genetic data, following the model of an international agreement, the Nagoya Protocol, that allows countries to demand fees from drug and food companies or other entities that profit from their genetic heritage. Adopting PABS would make the sharing of pandemic-causing pathogens a public good, keeping Nagoya Protocol payments at bay. Other emerging economies, notably those with fast-growing pharmaceutical industries, called for intellectual property (IP) rights to be weakened or suspended during pandemics, and for technology transfers so that Africans and Asians can make their own vaccines. European governments said that defending IP was a red line, arguing that companies need a chance to recoup research costs, or innovation will suffer. Rich-world pharmaceutical firms called the expansion of advanced vaccine-manufacture a noble but long-term goal. In the meantime, they argued, haggling with governments over fees for pathogens can slow down vital cures, for example during a Zika-virus outbreak in Latin America in 2016. Sometimes, avoiding failure is the big win China was 'very comfortable with the polarised debate' in Geneva, says an expert on the talks. 'They had no interest in eroding IP protection, they have lots of IP. But they liked seeing a geopolitical fight between north and south.' Mr Trump saved the treaty, argues Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law at Georgetown University: governments compromised to save the multilateral order from America. Aalisha Sahukahn heads the Centre for Disease Control on the Pacific island-state of Fiji and led her country's delegation in Geneva. There is no guarantee that governments will keep treaty commitments, she concedes. Still, the mere act of agreeing on shared principles reassures small countries like hers. 'A standard is set: this is how we should be behaving.' Much could still go wrong. But if nothing else, rational self-interest was tested and survived. That is surely worth a cheer. Get 360° coverage—from daily headlines to 100 year archives.
Hindustan Times
20-05-2025
- Health
- Hindustan Times
WHO member states adopt landmark Pandemic Agreement
New Delhi: Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday formally adopted by consensus the world's first Pandemic Agreement, the UN health body said in a statement, although the US' absence from the agreement casts a long shadow over its effectiveness. 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. 'The landmark decision by the 78th World Health Assembly culminates more than three years of intensive negotiations launched by governments in response to the devastating impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, and driven by the goal of making the world safer from – and more equitable in response to – future pandemics,' read the statement. The pact is aimed to ensure that drugs, therapeutics and vaccines are globally accessible when the next pandemic hits. It requires participating manufacturers from signatory countries to allocate a target of 20% of their vaccines, medicines, and tests to the WHO during a pandemic to ensure poorer countries have access. But with the US in the process of withdrawing from WHO, the effectiveness of the agreement is unclear. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said, 'The world is safer today thanks to the leadership, collaboration, and commitment of our member states to adopt the historic WHO Pandemic Agreement.' 'The agreement is a victory for public health, science and multilateral action. It will ensure we, collectively, can better protect the world from future pandemic threats. It is also a recognition by the international community that our citizens, societies and economies must not be left vulnerable to again suffer losses like those endured during Covid-19.' The WHO Pandemic Agreement sets out the principles, approaches and tools for better international coordination across a range of areas, in order to strengthen the global health architecture for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. This includes through the equitable and timely access to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. The steps to be taken for countries mentioned in the agreement for implementation of the agreement includes launching a process to draft and negotiate a Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing system (PABS) through an Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG). The treaty guarantees that countries which share virus samples will receive tests, medicines and vaccines. According to the agreement, pharmaceutical manufacturers participating in the PABS system will play a key role in equitable and timely access to pandemic-related health products by making available to WHO 'rapid access targeting 20% of their real time production of safe, quality and effective vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics for the pathogen causing the pandemic emergency.' The distribution of these products to countries will be carried out on the basis of public health risk and need, with particular attention to the needs of developing countries. 'Starting during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, governments from all corners of the world acted with great purpose, dedication and urgency, and in doing so exercising their national sovereignty, to negotiate the historic WHO Pandemic Agreement that has been adopted today,' said Teodoro Herbosa, secretary, Philippines department of health, and president of this year's World Health Assembly, who presided over the agreement's adoption. 'Now that the agreement has been brought to life, we must all act with the same urgency to implement its critical elements, including systems to ensure 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.'
