Despite Slovakia demanding a vote – I told you WHO hates a vote
- The adoption of the agreement followed three years of intensive negotiations, which began due to gaps and inequalities identified in the national and global fight against COVID-19.
- The agreement promotes global cooperation to ensure a stronger and fairer response to future pandemics.
- The next steps include negotiating a system for access to pathogens and sharing the benefits.
The World Health Organization (WHO) Member States today formally adopted by consensus the world’s first pandemic agreement. This landmark decision by the 78th World Health Assembly culminates more than three years of intensive negotiations initiated by governments in response to the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and aims to make the world safer and more equitable from future pandemics.
“The world is safer today thanks to the leadership, cooperation and commitment of our Member States in adopting the historic WHO Pandemic Agreement,” said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “This agreement is a victory for public health, science and multilateralism. It ensures that we can collectively better protect the world from future pandemic threats. It is also a recognition by the international community that our citizens, societies and economies must not be left vulnerable to the kind of losses we suffered during COVID-19.”
Governments today adopted the WHO pandemic agreement at the plenary session of the World Health Assembly, the highest decision-making body of the WHO. The adoption follows the agreement’s approval by member state delegations in a vote (124 in favour, 0 against, 11 abstentions) in the committee yesterday.
“Since the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world have acted with great determination, commitment and urgency, exercising their national sovereignty, to negotiate the historic WHO Pandemic Agreement, which was adopted today,” said Dr. Teodoro Herbosa, Secretary of the Department of Health of the Philippines and President of this year’s World Health Assembly, who chaired the adoption of the agreement. “Now that the agreement is in place, we must all act with equal urgency to implement its essential elements, including systems that ensure equitable access to life-saving pandemic-related health products. Since COVID was a once-in-a-lifetime emergency, the WHO Pandemic Agreement provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build on the lessons learned from this crisis and ensure that people around the world are better protected in the event of a future pandemic.”
The WHO Pandemic Compact sets out principles, approaches and tools for improved international coordination across multiple areas to strengthen the global health architecture for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. This includes equitable and timely access to vaccines, medicines and diagnostics.
In terms of national sovereignty, the agreement states: “Nothing in the WHO Pandemic Agreement gives the Secretariat of the World Health Organization, including the Director-General of the World Health Organization, the authority to direct, order, modify or otherwise prescribe the domestic and/or international laws or policies of any Party, or to oblige or otherwise impose requirements that Parties take specific measures, such as prohibiting the admission or reception of travelers, imposing vaccination requirements or therapeutic or diagnostic measures, or implementing lockdowns.”
[These provisions were in earlier drafts, but were removed – Nass]
Notes to editors
The WHO Pandemic Agreement Resolution adopted by the World Health Assembly sets out steps to prepare for the implementation of the agreement. This includes launching a process to develop and negotiate a Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System (PABS) through an Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG). The results of this process will be discussed at next year’s World Health Assembly.
Once the Assembly has adopted the PABS Annex, the WHO Pandemic Agreement will be opened for signature and consideration of ratification, including by national legislatures. Once 60 countries have ratified, the agreement will enter into force.
In addition, Member States instructed the Intergovernmental Working Group to initiate steps to enable the establishment of a coordinating financial mechanism for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response and a Global Supply Chain and Logistics Network (GSCL) to “enhance, facilitate and work towards removing barriers and ensuring equitable, timely, rapid, safe and affordable access to pandemic-related health products to countries in need during and in the prevention of public health emergencies of international concern, including pandemic-related emergencies.”
Under the agreement, pharmaceutical manufacturers participating in the PABS system will play a key role in ensuring equitable and timely access to pandemic-related health products by making available to WHO “expedited access, targeted at 20% of their real-time production, of safe, high-quality and effective vaccines, medicines and diagnostics against the pathogen causing the pandemic.” These products will be allocated to countries based on public health risk and need, with particular attention to the needs of developing countries.
[But the pharmaceutical companies have not yet officially agreed – Nass]
The WHO Pandemic Agreement is the second international legal agreement negotiated under Article 19 of the WHO Constitution. The first was the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which was adopted in 2003 and entered into force in 2005.
From South China Post, Reuters and AP:
Published: May 20, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Updated: May 20, 2025 at 6:35 PM Singapore Time
Members of the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted a historic agreement on Tuesday on how to prepare for future pandemics following the Covid-19 outbreak, which killed millions of people in 2020-2022.
After three years of negotiations, the World Health Assembly in Geneva adopted the legally binding pact. WHO member states welcomed its adoption with applause.
The pact was widely seen as a victory for members of the global health agency at a time when multilateral organizations like the WHO have suffered from sharp cuts in foreign funding from the US.
“This agreement is a victory for public health, science and multilateralism. It ensures that together we can better protect the world from future pandemic threats,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
He also called the agreement “historic” at a time when many countries are putting their national interests ahead of shared values and cooperation.
The agreement guarantees that countries that share virus samples will receive tests, drugs and vaccines. Up to 20 percent of such products will be given to the WHO to ensure that poorer countries have some access to them in the event of the next pandemic.
However, US negotiators walked away from discussions on the agreement after President Donald Trump, upon taking office in January, began a 12-month process to withdraw the US – by far the WHO’s largest funder – from the agency.
Given this, the US, which invested billions of dollars in vaccine development during the Covid-19 pandemic, would not be bound by the pact. And WHO member states would not be penalized if they did not implement it.
Dr. Esperance Luvindao, Namibia’s health minister and chair of the committee that paved the way for Tuesday’s adoption, said the pandemic had taken a huge toll on “lives, livelihoods and the economy.”
“We – as sovereign nations – have decided to join hands, to be one world, to protect our children, the elderly, frontline healthcare workers and everyone else from the next pandemic,” Luvindao added. “This is our duty and responsibility to humanity.”
The agreement was reached after Slovakia called for a vote on Monday after its coronavirus vaccine skeptic prime minister demanded that his country challenge the agreement’s adoption.
Some health experts welcomed the agreement as a step towards greater fairness in global healthcare after poorer countries were left short of vaccines and diagnostics during the pandemic.
“It contains critical provisions, particularly in the area of research and development, that – if implemented – could shift the global pandemic response towards greater equity,” said Michelle Childs, director of policy advocacy at the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative.
Others said the agreement fell short of its original ambitions and that without strong implementation frameworks it could fail in the event of a future pandemic.
“It’s an empty shell … It’s hard to say that it’s a contract with a firm commitment, where there’s a strong commitment … It’s a good starting point. But it needs to be developed further,” said Gian Luca Burci, an academic advisor at the Geneva Graduate Institute’s Center for Global Health, an independent research and education organization.
The pact will not enter into force until an annex on sharing pathogen information is agreed. Negotiations on this will begin in July with the aim of submitting the annex to the World Health Assembly for adoption, the WHO said. A Western diplomatic source suggested that reaching an agreement could take up to two years.
