The pandemic agreement will not be adopted at a special World Health Assembly (WHA) next month as countries still need “more time” to conclude the complex talks.

Co-chairs of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) Ambassador Anne-Claire Amprou and Precious Matsoso broke this news at a media briefing on Monday evening.

The INB is midway through its 12th meeting after 32 months of negotiations. While some member states and stakeholders have cautioned against sacrificing content for haste, the Africa Group in particular was keen for an early adoption of the agreement.

“Member states have made progress on the text to reach a consensus on all the key elements of the pandemic agreement,” said INB co-chair Ambassador Anne-Claire Amprou.

But they “think that there are still work to do, and they want to use the coming weeks of discussions to continue making progress.” she added.

“Today, member states agreed we need to conclude the agreement as soon as possible and continue negotiations into 2025 with the goal of concluding the agreement by the next WHA scheduled in May 2025, so we are moving in the right direction with a strong political commitment by member states.”

Co-chair Precious Matsoso added that negotiators “are actually closer on some issues than we think” and that “broad principles had been agreed on but need more work, especially on some of the final details”.

Matsoso continued: “A clear opportunity exists for a middle ground and a place where there can be political will, trust and commitment so that the world can be better prepared for the threats today and also in future. I’m confident that we’ll reach that.”

Impact of Trump election?

Last week’s US election victory by Donald Trump cast a shadow over extending the talks.  As president, Trump withdrew the US from the WHO in 2020 and has promised to do the same if re-elected, describing the WHO as a “corrupt scam paid for by the US but controlled by China”.

However, when asked about the impact of Trump’s election on the process, WHO principal legal officer Steven Solomon said that the US was but one of the global body’s 194 member states.

“WHO is the UN agency for health. We are an international intergovernmental organization composed of 194 member states. The question relates to the national political decisions of one of WHO’s member countries, and permit me to refer you to the representatives of that country to respond.”

‘Complex’ issues

Amprou stressed that member states were trying to create something new and many issues – such as the proposed Pathogens Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) system – were “complex”.

Negotiators have discussed adopting a framework agreement with annexes on PABS (Article 12) and pandemic prevention (Article 4), the details of which would be decided on later.

However, Amprou said discussion on this is still ongoing: “The question is, how much detail do we need to operationalise the PABS and to operationalise prevention? Should we include everything in the pandemic agreement or in annexes, other instruments, appendices, whatever? 

“How to find the good balance? That’s why there is the option to have a parent agreement and further instruments.”

One of the most practical benefits of the proposed pandemic agreement is that a certain percentage of pandemic products – particularly vaccines and medicines – would be assigned to WHO for distribution during a pandemic.

This percentage started at 20% but has been halved in recent negotiations – but Amprou stressed the percentage was still being discussed.

“What we heard in the room is that there is a very strong commitment from member states to have a meaningful percentage allocated to to the system. So we will see at the end of the discussion.”

Matsoso added that, once that agreement is adopted, it means real work begins “because we must have the Conference of Party, countries must ratify the pandemic agreement, but you also have to ensure that there is operational elements that can help us.”

‘Abject failure’

INB observer Nina Schwalbe , CEO of Spark Street Advisors, described the decision not to call a special WHA in December “an abject failure of the international system”.

Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark submitted a statement to the INB earlier on Monday saying that the agreement – and its implementation – are “urgent”. 

“As you gather today, a teenager in western Canada has been hospitalized with H5N1. Mpox continues to infect and kill people in central and east Africa. Rwanda is doing its utmost to contain a Marburg outbreak. There are either no, or not nearly enough vaccines, diagnostics or treatments to equitably contain any of these pathogens,” said Clark, who was co-leader of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response.

“The world is changing rapidly. Deadly pathogens are not waiting for a pandemic agreement to be adopted and to come into force, or for the results of elections.”