A crucial stocktake of the state-of-play of the World Health Organization (WHO) pandemic agreement talks on Friday afternoon (3 May) will determine the way forward for the final five days’ negotiations.
But progress has been slow in the past four days, according to reports – with differing opinions about whether a skeleton agreement can or even should be nailed down in time for the World Health Assembly (WHA) at the end of the month – or whether it should be deferred for another year.
An array of civil society organisations wrote to WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyessus last week expressing concern that the Bureau co-chairs of the intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) are pushing hard for countries to adopt an agreement that “perpetuates the status quo, entrenching discretionary, voluntary measures and maintaining inequitable access as the norm for addressing PPPR” [pandemic preparedness, prevention and response].
Meanwhile, 20 medicines access advocacy groups also issued an open letter over the weekend describing a pandemic instrument that does not deliver equity as a “failure”.