WHO adopts landmark pandemic agreement

The UN health agency on Tuesday adopted a landmark Pandemic Agreement on tackling future health crises, struck after more than three years of negotiations sparked by the Covid-19 crisis.

The accord aims to prevent the disjointed response and international disarray that surrounded the Covid-19 pandemic, by improving global coordination and surveillance, and access to vaccines, in any future pandemics.

The World Health Organization’s decision-making annual assembly adopted the plan on Tuesday at its Geneva headquarters.

“It’s an historic day,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told AFP after the vote.

The text of the agreement was finalised by consensus last month, following multiple rounds of tense negotiations.

The United States pulled out of those talks, following US President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw his country from the WHO, a process that takes one year to complete.

“The world is safer today thanks to the leadership, collaboration and commitment of our member states to adopt the historic WHO Pandemic Agreement,” Tedros said in a statement.

“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.”

– Path to ratification –

The agreement aims to better detect and combat pandemics by focusing on greater international coordination and surveillance, and more equitable access to vaccines and treatments.

The negotiations grew tense amid disagreements between wealthy and developing countries, with the latter feeling cut off from access to vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic.