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The head of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has warned that innovative financial instruments and private sector mobilization are only of limited use when it comes to helping the world’s poorest people.

Speaking to Devex ahead of a summit in Paris this week, designed to strike a new pact between wealthy and low-income countries, Peter Sands said that getting multilateral development banks to stimulate private investment in low-income, conflict-affected countries “is not going to really work … because you are not going to get rational private capital investing significant sums in those parts of the world.”

Priti Patnaik with Tessa Jager & Shoa Moosavi

The negotiations on the pandemic accord took a decisive turn this week when the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body met to discuss the Bureau’s Text, where the thorniest of issues including on research and development, liability, access and benefit sharing, among others, were considered in detail.

Countries essentially accepted the Bureau’s Text, as the basis for negotiations, even as they are expected to bring their proposals to this version to improve it at every level, diplomatic sources indicated. Recall that the Bureau’s Text is built on the extensive compilation text which reflects all proposals made so far by WHO member states. But the Bureau’s Text does not include many of the provisions submitted by countries.

At the end of this week’s negotiation on the pandemic accord, Roland Driece, co-chair of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) charged with drafting a pandemic accord, told the final plenary on Friday that “it’s not easy” – a phrase that he repeated four times in the space of minutes.

To ease difficulties, the INB piloted a new approach involving informal sessions to “bridge gaps” on the sidelines of the formal drafting session, Driece said. 

Two informal sessions were held on one of the trickiest aspects of the negotiations: Article 9 (Chapter Two) of the current pandemic accord draft, dealing with the research and development (R&D) of pandemic products. Mexico and Norway facilitated the sessions, while experts were on hand to respond to technical questions.

Meanwhile, in the formal drafting committee, member states “exchanged views” on Articles 9 (R&D), 10 (liability risk management), 11 (technology transfer), 12 (access and benefit-sharing of pathogen), 13 (supply chain) and 14 (regulatory strengthening).

As an interim step to a first draft of the World Health Organization (WHO) Pandemic Treaty, a new text has recently been released that was intended to reflect proposals that countries had submitted and to serve as a framework for the deliberations of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB)[1] at its meeting from 12 to 16 June 2023. While the updated text mentions equity as a principle and recognises the importance of ensuring fair access to pandemic-related health products, medicines and technologies, it fails to clearly set out the set of legal obligations required to achieve this objective, and many of the options put forward are geared towards maintaining the status quo rather than progressing towards a new paradigm. Chapter II deals with the articles most directly related to equitable access.

Salud por Derecho would like to draw attention to the following areas that need to be improved in the text:

In today’s edition, we bring you a guest essay on the lessons from the negotiations on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control that could offer clues on tackling and understanding the beast we are confronted with today - the negotiations towards a Pandemic Accord. As a range of stakeholders from overworked diplomats, to resigned activists try to keep up the momentum in these crucial and important negotiations, we hope you find this contribution useful.

Leah Shipton, who works at the intersection of public health and political science, has authored this essay, distilling the past into an insightful analysis relevant for current global health negotiations, while also noting how the nature of the beast has changed over the years.

Timely and equitable access to effective medical countermeasures that are suited to the realities of the local health context is critical to stop disease outbreaks when and where they occur.

By Els Torreele, Dr. Joanne Liu, Michel Kazatchkine

The multiple overlapping discussions underway on medical countermeasures (MCMs) — vaccines, medicines, tests, and other health technologies to prevent, detect, and control disease outbreaks — must do more than tinker in the margins of the status quo. Learning hard lessons from previous experiences that failed to achieve timely and equitable access to such health technologies in large parts of the world, we must raise the ambition and design a truly transformative MCMs platform for research and development, manufacturing, and access centered on equity from start to finish.

The multiple overlapping discussions underway on medical countermeasures (MCMs) — vaccines, medicines, tests, and other health technologies to prevent, detect, and control disease outbreaks — must do more than tinker in the margins of the status quo. Learning hard lessons from previous experiences that failed to achieve timely and equitable access to such health technologies in large parts of the world, we must raise the ambition and design a truly transformative MCMs platform for research and development, manufacturing, and access centered on equity from start to finish.

Access by affected countries to Ebola treatments is at a “standstill”, more than two years since their approval and five outbreaks of Ebola virus disease (EVD) later.

This was exposed by MSF Access Campaign in its recently launched report titled “Ensuring Access to New Treatments for Ebola Virus Disease”.

Sangeeta Shashikant (London) – Access by affected countries to Ebola treatments is at a “standstill”, more than two years since their approval and five outbreaks of Ebola virus disease (EVD) later.

This was exposed by MSF Access Campaign in its recently launched report titled “Ensuring Access to New Treatments for Ebola Virus Disease”.

Negotiations on a pandemic instrument will resume on 12 to 16 June at the World Health Organization’s headquarters in Geneva.

However, the Bureau of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) has proposed a work programme for the resumed session of the 5th meeting of the INB that invites relevant ideas and concepts on a text prepared by the Bureau, instead of textual proposals from Member States.