An extra week of negotiations to complete the crucial missing piece of an international agreement on handling future pandemics kicked off Monday at the World Health Organization (WHO), with sharp divisions holding up an accord. Wealthy countries and developing nations are at loggerheads in the WHO talks over how the pandemic treaty, adopted last year, will work in practice.
Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System
The agreement's Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) system deals with sharing access to pathogens with pandemic potential, then sharing the benefits derived from them: vaccines, tests, and treatments. Developing countries voice mistrust, fearing they will share their viruses without any guarantees of equitable access to vaccines in the event of a crisis, according to WHO chief scientist Sylvie Briand. Meanwhile, other countries question whether the pharmaceutical industry would have the capacity and motivation to contribute without a guarantee of return on investment. Another challenge is integrating the sharing of genetic data, now as crucial as physical viruses for developing vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics.
Background of the Pandemic Treaty
In May 2025, WHO member states adopted a landmark pandemic agreement on tackling future health crises, after more than three years of negotiations sparked by the shock of COVID-19. The accord aims to prevent future pandemics from the disjointed responses and international disarray that surrounded the coronavirus crisis by improving global coordination, surveillance, and access to vaccines. However, PABS, the heartbeat of the treaty, was left aside to get the bulk of the deal over the line. Countries have been given one final week, through Friday, to negotiate PABS, with an eye on getting it approved during the World Health Assembly of WHO member states, which opens on May 18.
Jean Karydakis, a diplomat at Brazil's mission in Geneva, said he thought a deal was possible even if the differences were by no means negligible. Progress has been slow and finding compromise will be very hard, though the European Union was now making an effort to demonstrate some flexibility, he said. PABS is considered crucial by developing states, particularly in Africa, where many countries felt cut adrift in the scramble for COVID-19 vaccines. However, there are nuances between their positions. Some emerging economies like South Africa want technology transfers, while the poorest countries focus primarily on access to health care products. Adeel Mumtaz Khokhar, from Pakistan's mission, said the negotiations had been quite challenging but we remain hopeful. Licensing, technology transfer, and broader capacity building of your health system remain a big point of contention.
Key Issues in Negotiations
The treaty already says participating pharmaceutical companies should make available 20 percent of their real-time production of vaccines, tests, and treatments to the WHO for redistribution, with at least half as a donation and the rest at affordable prices. However, the details remain to be defined in the PABS annex, as do the terms of access to health data and tools outside pandemics. NGOs and developing countries want to impose mandatory rules for laboratories to ensure poor countries receive vaccines. During the Ebola outbreaks, samples from African patients led to treatments developed without such obligations, said Olena Zarytska of the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF). The result was limited supplies in Africa and stockpiles in the United States, which under President Donald Trump has withdrawn from the WHO.
Developing countries also want a user registration and tracking system for the PABS database, while developed countries, basically Germany, Norway, and Switzerland, advocate for maintaining anonymous access, said K. M. Gopakumar, senior researcher with the Third World Network. Anonymous access would make it impossible to track who is using pathogen information, what for, and whether they are sharing the derived benefits, 100 non-governmental organizations including Oxfam said in a joint letter to the WHO. In practice, this means that genetic resources originating in developing countries can be accessed, commercialized, and exploited with complete impunity, the letter said.
