Countries are currently hammering out the details of a pandemic accord — an international agreement aimed at ensuring the world works with more cohesion in better preventing, preparing for, and responding to future pandemics. The text of this agreement has been in negotiation since February 2023.
The African continent has a lot at stake in getting this text right. During the COVID-19 pandemic, its populations were left stranded without key countermeasures such as vaccines to fight the virus, due to hoarding by high-income nations, inadequate sharing of intellectual property, and export restrictions.
The lofty ambition behind creating a global pandemic accord is to ensure these dynamics don’t play out again during the next pandemic — as the status quo led to countless and needless deaths.