HQ Team
April 16, 2025: The 194 Member States of the WHO have reached a consensus on a draft agreement to strengthen global collaboration on prevention, preparedness and response to future pandemic threats.
After 13 formal rounds of meetings that lasted more than three years, starting in December 2021 —the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic — the 194 nations reached a consensus plan on a Pandemic Agreement, according to a statement.
In 2021 the WHO established an Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) to draft and negotiate a convention, agreement or other international instrument, under the WHO Constitution, to combat future pandemics.
The draft proposal will be presented to the Seventy-eighth Health Assembly on May 19, 2025, for adoption under Article 19 of the WHO Constitution, according to the WHO statement. The Health Assembly is the decision-making body of the World Health Organization.
‘Generational accord’
“The nations of the world made history in Geneva today,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.
“In reaching consensus on the Pandemic Agreement, not only did they put in place a generational accord to make the world safer, but they have also demonstrated that multilateralism is alive and well and that in our divided world, nations can still work together to find common ground and a shared response to shared threats.
“We look forward to the World Health Assembly’s consideration of the agreement and – we hope – its adoption.”
The draft plans include establishing a pathogen access and benefit-sharing system, taking concrete measures on pandemic prevention, including through a One Health approach and building geographically diverse research and development capacities.
Global health emergency workforce
The proposals also lay out plans for facilitating the transfer of technology and related knowledge, skills and expertise for making pandemic-related health products and mobilising a skilled, trained and multidisciplinary national and global health emergency workforce.
Other steps outlined in the proposal were setting up a coordinating financial mechanism, taking concrete measures to strengthen preparedness, readying health system functions and resilience and establishing a global supply chain and logistics network.
A key bone of contention was the overpowering role of the WHO in implementing the proposals, which the global health agency addressed in the plan.
“The proposal affirms the sovereignty of countries to address public health matters within their borders and provides that nothing in the draft agreement shall be interpreted as providing WHO any authority to direct, order, alter or prescribe national laws or policies, or mandate States to take specific actions, such as ban or accept travellers, impose vaccination mandates or therapeutic or diagnostic measures or implement lockdowns.”
‘Difficult and protracted’
The negotiations, at times, have been difficult and protracted, INB Co-Chair Ms Precious Matsoso said.
“But this monumental effort has been sustained by the shared understanding that viruses do not respect borders, that no one is safe from pandemics until everyone is safe, and that collective health security is an aspiration we deeply believe in and want to strengthen.”
Anne-Claire Amprou, fellow co-chair, said: “While the commitment to prevention through the One Health approach is a major step forward in protecting populations, the response will be faster, more effective and more equitable.
“This is a historic agreement for health security, equity and international solidarity.”
