Years of negotiations culminated in the small hours of Wednesday, April 16, and the countries agreed to the text of a historical agreement on how to address future pandemics, aimed at avoiding a repetition of COVID-19 errors.
After more than three years of conversations and a final marathon session, the delegates tired at the headquarters of World Health Organizations could finally explode Champagne’s corks around 2:00 am on Wednesday.
“The nations of the world made history in Geneva today,” said Chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a statement. “When they reached a consensus on the Pandemia agreement, they not only established a generational agreement so that the world is safer, but have also shown that multilateralism is alive and well, and that in our divided world, nations can still work together to find a common land and a shared response to shared threats.”
Five years after COVID-19 kill millions of people and devastated economies, a growing emergency sensation hung from the conversations at a time when the new health threats that went from the Aviar H5N1 flu to measles, Mpox and Ebola were on the stalking.
The final section of negotiations also took place with cuts for the expenditure of foreign aid of the United States and the tariffs threatened in pharmaceutical products that threw a new shadow on the conversations.
‘Is adopted’
Just until the last minute, the disagreement had remained on some thorny problems. The negotiators had stumbled upon article 11 of the agreement, which deals with the transfer of technology for Pandemic Health Products, sources told AFP.
Duration The countries of the Covid-19 Pandemia, poorer, accused the rich nations of monopolizing vaccines and tests.
Countries that have large pharmaceutical industries have strongly opposed the idea of mandatory technological transfers, insisting that they are volunteers. It seemed that the technology transfer obstacle could be overcome by adding that any transfer should be “Mutual Valley agreed.”
In the end, the 32 -page agreement, completely prominent was green, indicating that it had been fully approved by the WHO Member States. “It has been adopted,” Anne-Claire Amprou, co-president of negotiations, applause announced.
The final text will now be presented to sign at the WHO annual assembly next month.
As the intense conversations in runners and closed rooms continued at the WHO headquarters, Tedros joined the negotiations on Tuesday night and told journalists that he thought the current was “good”, “balanced” and that an agreement should “more equity.”
While taking measures to coordinate pandemic prevention, preparation and response could be expensive, Tedros insisted that “the cost of inaction is much greater.” “The virus is the worst enemy. () It could be worse than a war,” he said.
The United States, which has launched the global health system to the crisis by reducing foreign aid spending, was not present. The president of the United States, Donald Trump, ordered a withdrawal from the United Nations Health Agency and conversations of pandemic agreement after assuming the position in January.
However, the absence of the United States and Trump’s threat to slapped the steep tariffs on pharmaceutical products, still hung on conversations, making manufacturers and governments more nervous. But in the end, countries reached consensus.
“The world is looking at us, and you can be very proud of what you just achieved,” said Amprou.
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