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In today’s edition we bring you a guest essay from a group of human rights scholars, keen on shaping the discussions towards a new Pandemic Accord in a way that reflects such considerations in the governance of pandemics. In this piece, they pick apart current provisions and suggest priorities for the on-going negotiations.

The authors say, “Framing the substance of the Pandemic Treaty, human rights must be central to global health obligations, as the right to health provides a central normative foundation in preparing for and responding to pandemics.”

We hope you enjoy reading this timely and important commentary on a somewhat neglected area in the on-going negotiations of global health law reforms.

A new “Zero+” version of a proposed World Health Organization pandemic accord being negotiated by member states has dropped previously strong language that conditioned use of public R&D funds to private sector commitments to price transparency and tech transfer of end products, among other measuress.

However, the updated draft text, obtained by Health Policy Watch, still contains ‘optional’ language linking developing countries’ sharing of pathogen information to a guaranteed supply of drugs, vaccines and other health tools that they would access a WHO distribution scheme.

While not a formal part of this week’s World Health Assembly (WHA) proceedings, the text drafted by the “Bureau” of six member states guiding the talks is being circulated this week as they prepare for another round of  negotiations over the new accord, scheduled by the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) 12-16 June.

The Zero Draft of the WHO CA+ is used as the basis for comparison using a thematic approach, with a consequent review of the relevant provisions in the Draft Bureau’s text of the WHO CA+. This comparison document includes only the following themes: objectives and scope, general principles and approaches, co-development and transfer of technology and know-how, research & development, access and benefit sharing, preparedness, readiness and resilience, one health, financing, preparedness monitoring and functional reviews, and governance (bodies, reporting, implementation, compliance, and committees).

Op-Ed by Mariana Mazzucato, professor at UCL and chair of the World Health Organization Council on the Economics of Health for All

The COVID-19 pandemic heralded unprecedented resource mobilisation and global scientific collaboration to rapidly develop effective vaccines. Regrettably, vaccine distribution has been inequitable, particularly in Africa where manufacturing capacity remains nominal. To address this, several initiatives are underway to develop and manufacture COVID-19 vaccines in Africa. Nevertheless, diminishing demand for COVID-19 vaccines, the cost competitiveness of producing goods locally, intellectual property rights issues, and complex regulatory environments among other challenges can undermine these ventures. We outline how extending COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing in Africa to include diverse products, multiple vaccine platforms, and advanced delivery systems will ensure sustainability. Possible models, including leveraging public–academic–private partnerships to enhance success of vaccine manufacturing capacity in Africa are also discussed.

Under its G20 presidency, India has proposed a medical countermeasure coordination platform to effectively deal with challenges of any COVID-like pandemic.

Dr Michael Ryan, Executive Director at WHO Health Emergency Programme in Geneva, who is attending the third G20 Health Working Group meeting being held here from June 4 to 6, said the future of health and pandemic preparedness is stronger with the leadership of India in this meeting.

"We are discussing the pandemic preparedness and response and how to chart a future path so that we all respond better to the next pandemic.

"India in G20's leadership is highlighting this issue and talking about how we work together on medical countermeasures, how we make better vaccines and drugs, how do we get them to people quicker, and how do we make the whole system fair so that people who really need things get them as soon as possible," Dr Ryan said, adding, "India is in a very strong position to do that."

In the aftermath of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 76th World Health Assembly, the pace of WHO negotiations on: 1) a pandemic treaty and 2) amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) will intensify over the coming months. WHO’s informal list of intergovernmental meetings is published here: https://apps.who.int/gb/gov/en/intergovernmental-meeting_en.html.

The World Health Organization declaration that “the global health emergency of COVID-19 is over” has removed the sense of urgency that for more than three years shaped global health discussions.1 As a result of the pandemic, the topic of intellectual property (IP) and its influence on access to health technologies was widely and intensely discussed. The support gathered by a waiver proposal on certain parts of the Trade Related aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) Agreement, the creation of the COVID-19 Technologies Access Pool (C-TAP) and a number of national and regional initiatives aimed at scaling up production of health goods are just some examples of where the needs of the many were framed above pro昀椀ts and monopolies. Several policy processes that were set-aside, stalled or even stopped during the pandemic have resumed, while initiatives that originated in the response to the pandemic have either evolved or run their course. This policy brief looks at some of the interventions designed during the COVID-19 pandemic to counter the impact of excessive use of IP protection tools.

Through the experiences gained by accelerating new vaccines for both Ebola virus infection and COVID-19 in a public health emergency, vaccine development has benefited from a ‘multiple shots on goal’ approach to new vaccine targets. This approach embraces simultaneous development of candidates with differing technologies, including, when feasible, vesicular stomatitis virus or adenovirus vectors, messenger RNA (mRNA), whole inactivated virus, nanoparticle and recombinant protein technologies, which led to multiple effective COVID-19 vaccines. The challenge of COVID-19 vaccine inequity, as COVID-19 spread globally, created a situation where cutting-edge mRNA technologies were preferentially supplied by multinational pharmaceutical companies to high-income countries while low and middle-income countries (LMICs) were pushed to the back of the queue and relied more heavily on adenoviral vector, inactivated virus and recombinant protein vaccines. To prevent this from occurring in future pandemics, it is essential to expand the scale-up capacity for both traditional and new vaccine technologies at individual or simultaneous hubs in LMICs.

The Medical Countermeasures Platform that is being discussed by WHO and partners, has emerged clearly in the draft text of the Political Declaration on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response, for the United Nations General Assembly High-level Meeting in September 2023.

In the latest version of the text, dated June 20^th, seen by Geneva Health Files, there have been several references to the medical countermeasures platform. Of course, this should not be surprising given that the idea for such a platform has steadily moved this year through WHO, the G7, the G20, the Johannesburg processes and now in New York.