World Health Organization (WHO) Director General expressed confidence that member states would agree on the last outstanding part of the Pandemic Agreement by the “absolute deadline” of May at the body’s Executive Board meeting on Wednesday.

“This year’s World Health Assembly [in May] must receive a text that member states can consider and act upon. There is no scope for delay because the next pandemic will not wait,” Tedros urged.

But questions by Pakistan, part of the Group for Equity negotiating bloc in the negotiations, indicated a lack of agreement on several key issues relating to how pathogens should be shared.

Member states only have two more weeks of formal negotiations before the deadline – with the next round starting on Monday. However, the talks are also affected by WHO budget cuts which have limited their access to translators.

Countries are hammering out a Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) system, deciding on how materials and sequence information from pathogens with pandemic potential can be shared fast and fairly – and how countries sharing this information can also benefit from any products that are developed as a result.

The Group for Equity and Africa Region want draft contracts to be included as part of the deal to set out the terms for those who want access to pathogen information – for example, pharmaceutical companies in order to make vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostic tests.

The Pakistan delegate said that the two groups – representing 80% of the world’s population – had come up with a standard material transfer agreement based on other international agreements, and a draft contract for digital sequence information.

“We have had only one informal discussion on the draft contracts,” said Pakistan, urging those in charge of the process to organise more consultation on the contracts.

“In order to complete the exercise, to have full legal clarity and certainty we would like to have a pandemic agreement with draft contracts.”

Three key areas for talks

Matthew Harpur, co-chair of the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) overseeing the negotiations, outlined the three key areas for the talks.

“Firstly, we have the scope and objectives and the use of terms,” said Harpur, who added that by last meeting, “it was really good to see some progress”. 

“Secondly, we have the implementation and the operation of the PABS system,” he added. This includes the issue of “equal footing” – namely, that rapid access to pathogens information and how the benefits deriving from this sharing are of equal importance.

“How do we how do we swiftly share that information that keeps us all safer and but how do we also ensure equity,” said Harpur, adding that issues such as monetary contributions had to be agreed on to ensure equity. 

The third part is “governance and enforcement”. 

“You can have the best words on paper, but if they’re not enforceable, if they don’t work in practice, it is meaningless,” said Harpur.

“So how do we ensure an effective governance system, with the advisory group, the role of the [Conference of the Parties] and, of course, the role of the Secretariat.”

The next IGWG meeting runs from 9-14 February.