World Health Organization agrees legally binding pandemic treaty

Members of the World Health Organization (WHO) have agreed the text of a legally binding treaty designed to better tackle future pandemics.

The pact is meant to avoid the disorganisation and competition for resources seen during the Covid-19 outbreak.

Key elements include the rapid sharing of data about new diseases, to ensure scientists and pharmaceutical companies can work more quickly to develop treatments and vaccines.

For the first time, the WHO itself will also have an overview of global supply chains for masks, medical gowns and other personal protective equipment (PPE).

WHO director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus described the deal as “a significant milestone in our shared journey towards a safer world”.

“[Member states] have also demonstrated that multilateralism is alive and well, and that in our divided world, nations can still work together to find common ground, and a shared response to shared threats,” he said.

The legally binding pact reached early on Wednesday came after three years of talks between member states.

It is only the second time in the WHO’s 75-year history that an international agreement of this type has been reached – the first being a tobacco control deal in 2003.

It still needs to be formally adopted by members when they meet for the World Health Assembly next month.

US negotiators were not part of the final discussions after President Donald Trump announced his decision to withdraw from the global health agency, and the US will not be bound by the pact when it leaves in 2026.

Under the terms agreed, countries will have to ensure that pandemic-related drugs are available across the world in a future outbreak.

Participating manufacturers will have to allocate 10% of their production of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics to the WHO. Another 10% will then be supplied at “affordable prices”.

Countries also approved the transfer of health technologies to poorer nations as long as it was “mutually agreed”.

That should enable more local production of vaccines and medicines during a pandemic, but the clause had been extremely contentious.

Developing countries are still angry at the way wealthy nations bought up and hoarded vaccines during Covid-19, while countries with large pharmaceutical industries worry mandatory transfers might undermine research and development.

At the core of the agreement is a proposed Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System (PABS), allowing the faster exchange of data between pharmaceutical companies.

That should enable those firms to start working on new drugs more quickly in any future outbreak.