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The Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB), which is tasked under WHO with drawing up an international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response, will sit for the 9th and final time from March 18–29. In the 2 years since it first met, hundreds of hours and unknown costs have been spent, but the political impetus has died. The convention is now at a critical juncture: the final text for countries to ratify is due to be presented at the World Health Assembly in May. With only limited days of negotiation left and a long way to go to secure a meaningful agreement, it is now or never for a treaty that can make the world a safer place.

This month the World Trade Organization threw in the towel on COVID-19. Medicines like Paxlovid have been plentiful in the U.S. and Europe, but because of insufficient supplies and high prices, hardly anyone in Africa, Asia, and Latin America has had access. After more than three years of debate, the WTO declared on Feb. 13 that it was unable to reach agreement on waiving global patent rules for COVID-19 treatment to ease the way for expanded production.

Equity is listed as a "guiding principle and approach" in the current proposed negotiating text for a new pandemic instrument.

"Equity is at the centre of pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, both at the national level within States, among and within countries or regions, and at the international level between States…” as per Article 3 of the negotiating text that elaborates on the principle of equity.

Similarly, EB decision 150(3), which spells out the scope of the amendment of the International Health Regulations 2005 (IHR) also mandates to address the issue of equity. It states: “Such amendments should be limited in scope and address specific and identified issues, challenges – including equity, technological or other developments – or gaps that could not effectively be addressed otherwise but are critical to supporting effective implementation and compliance of the International Health Regulations (2005)”.

The WHO pandemic instrument should commit the Parties to limit the exclusionary effects that government-granted patents and other IPRs may have during pandemics in support of rapid diffusion of new vaccines, diagnostics, medicines and other tools and facilitate collaboration and freedom to operate. The current draft text of Article 11 would not make any change to the status quo.

Proposed design elements for the Pandemic Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) System disregard key features of the comprehensive PABS proposal which has garnered support from at least 72 developing countries.

The Vice-Chair and Co-Facilitators of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) on a new pandemic instrument jointly drafted the proposed design elements for the PABS system. These proposed design elements undermine the efforts of developing countries to lock in concrete mechanisms that will operationalise equity during a public health emergency/pandemic.   

As WHO member states begin the final lap of intense negotiations on reforming the governance to health emergencies, the burden of expectations to reach an agreement in less than three months is getting acute.

Time is of essence and yet….

It is still not certain whether discussions at the forthcoming meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body, will result in concrete negotiations. We are effectively at the doorstep of the May 2024 deadline.

It is baffling that at this late stage of these discussions towards a new pandemic agreement, the plan for next week appears to be unclear with many countries not having enough clarity on the modalities of the process as they head into the two-week marathon negotiations this month. At a briefing this week, the INB Bureau reportedly said that the upcoming meeting will aim to bring countries closer on conceptual issues and that text-based negotiations is expected during the subsequent INB meeting in March.

In this edition, we bring you a primer on the state of play in these discussions and also discuss text of the proposals that will be considered next week.

Health Policy Watch has obtained portions of the latest draft of the pandemic agreement that member states will negotiate over at the eighth intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) starting on Monday, 19 February.

At the time of publishing, only member states had access to the draft, although a number of civil society organisations recognised as  stakeholders have requested a draft from the World Health Organization (WHO) Bureau that is overseeing the negotiations for some time.

The tranches of the agreement are grouped according to how they have been negotiated, so are not always sequential.

Health Policy Watch has obtained portions of the latest draft of the pandemic agreement that member states will negotiate over at the eighth intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) starting on Monday, 19 February.

At the time of publishing, only member states had access to the draft, although a number of civil society organisations recognised as  stakeholders have requested a draft from the World Health Organization (WHO) Bureau that is overseeing the negotiations for some time.

The tranches of the agreement are grouped according to how they have been negotiated, so are not always sequential.

… U.S. negotiators working on a global treaty that aims to guide the world’s response whenever a new deadly pathogen emerges have rejected proposals to loosen patent protections, a step that could enable developing countries to quickly make their own versions of the vaccines and drugs. For those countries and their advocates, it’s a striking stance — given what happened after Covid arrived: They shared data about new variants only to see the rich world hoard most of the vaccines. “There’s a contradiction, [an] enormous amount of hypocrisy,” said James Love, director of Knowledge Ecology International, who advocates for wider access to health products, of the Biden administration’s position. Love said the U.S. has used some of the same measures developing countries have proposed to limit intellectual property rights in the production of Covid vaccines at home. 

Poland on Thursday suggested that it might be better to delay the approval of a new World Health Organization (WHO) pandemic accord, beyond the planned May 2024 deadline – so as to get to an “ambitious, clear and consistent” agreement. The Polish trial balloon seemed to break ranks with the drumbeat of recent statements by WHO and other member states that negotiations should conclude this year – even if the present pathway to rapid agreement seems strewn with obstacles – including only a few more planned meetings of WHO  member state negotiating teams.