After three years of work, the World Health Organization’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Body is meeting this week for its final scheduled round of negotiations on a global pandemic agreement. The stakes couldn’t be higher.
The agreement’s obligations, ranging from diversified production of medical countermeasures to disease spillover prevention, are potentially transformative. Its institutional frameworks would allow the agreement to grow in ambition and scope.
While negotiators remain divided on obligations for pandemic prevention, technology transfer, and pathogen access and benefit sharing, or PABS, negotiating gaps have narrowed, including over the last few days. Reaching consensus now is critical, ahead of May’s World Health Assembly negotiating deadline.