WHO member states came together in recent days in the first substantive joint session that brought together the bureaux of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body and the Working Group of amendments to the International Health Regulations.
With a mere ten months away from the May 2024 deadline, where both these processes are expected to conclude and culminate in the adoption of new amendments to the IHR and a potentially new pandemic instrument, countries this week grappled with the basics such as what would legally constitute a pandemic, how it would be declared, what kind of actions would it trigger and most importantly, how would these elements sit across the two different, overlapping legal mechanisms. There was also consideration of a few key topics that have featured in both these tracks of negotiations.