The WHO General Director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says that the draft agreement shows that multilatery is “alive and well.”
The members of the World Health Organization (WHO) have reached a historical agreement on how to respond to future pandemics after more than three years of negotiations, said the global health agency.
The agreement project, prepared after more than 13 formal negotiations, will be presented for consideration at the World Health Assembly in May, said Wednesday.
WHO general director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that Member States had made history by demonstrating that multilatery is “alive and well” and that nations “still work together to find common land.”
“We hope the World Health Assembly consultation on the agreement and, we hope, its adoption,” said Tedros.
WHO has been working on an agreement since 2021, when Member States requested a plan to coordinate the global response to COVID-19 and respond better to the next health crisis.
The United States did not participate in the final rounds of conversations, after the president of the United States, Donald Trump, issued an executive order that canceled the US American membership.
The Member States failed to reach an agreement on a deadline of May 2024 in the midst of disagreements on intellectual property and access to vaccines.
The agreement reached on Wednesday includes commitments to improve technology and knowledge exchange, mobilize a multidisciplinary global health emergency force and establish a “pathogen access system and share benefits”, among other provisions.
The precious Matsoso of South Africa, one of the six ambassadors who helped lead the negotiations, said the agreement “would increase capital” and “protect the future generations of suffering and losses that we suffer the pandemic of the door of 19”.
“The negotiations, sometimes, have been difficult and prolonged. But this monumental effort has been sustained by the shared understanding that viruses do not respect borders, that no one is safe from pandemics until everyone is safe, and that the safety of collective health is an aspiration in which we believe deeply and want to strengthen,” Matsoso said.