Countries discuss definition of pandemic and response to outbreaks – 04/13/2023 – Health

Countries negotiating a crucial treaty designed to shape the world’s response to future pandemics have struggled to reach consensus on key points, including the basic definition of “pandemic”, but stick to the idea of ​​reaching a deal in 2024.

The “zero”, or initial, draft of the intergovernmental group that develops the treaty at the WHO (World Health Organization), obtained by the Financial Times, shows a complex debate between countries on whether an outbreak considered a “pandemic” would have to be viral, transmitted from human to human, or affect populations with low immunity, among other points.

The draft dates back to last month, but people close to the process say there has been no significant progress since then, although negotiations continue. WHO did not respond to a request for comment.

A diplomat working closely on the process, related to the Covid-19 pandemic, said: “It is clear that there is no agreement on anything.” And he added that UN processes generally tend to be lengthy.

Another diplomat also involved in the talks told the Financial Times: “What is becoming very clear is that there are very different expectations and priorities” between the countries. There was a “big growing divide between the global north and the global south”, added the diplomat.

The goal of concluding the negotiations in 2024 is “very ambitious”, said the second diplomat. “It would be unprecedented to reach a global health treaty in that timeframe,” he said, noting that a normal timeframe would be approximately ten years.

While disagreements are common in multilateral negotiations, especially in the early stages, they highlight the major challenge faced by negotiating countries in developing an agreement to be voted on by WHO member countries at the World Health Assembly in May 2024.

When the project was announced in 2021, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the move represented a once-in-a-generation opportunity to address “the many failures of the global system to protect populations from pandemics,” such as the unequal access to vaccines, medicines and tests.

Ellen ‘t Hoen, director of drug law and policy, said the document shows “a lot of disagreement between countries”.

A group of countries led by Brazil and South Africa are pushing for legally binding obligations on the provision of resources to developing countries. That push is meeting some resistance, one of the diplomats said. At the height of the pandemic, South Africa led a campaign to remove intellectual property restrictions on tests, drugs and vaccines for Covid-19.

“Nations are playing different games depending on what they want, but [é um] short treaty process”, they added. “In this context, it seems that we are not moving fast enough.”

Countries are also undecided on whether the WHO director-general would have the power to “trigger” a pandemic declaration, diplomats said.

A proposal by the European Union to cap prices of vaccines, drugs and tests at not-for-profit levels and to apply differentiated prices for poor and middle-income countries, respectively, has so far received a “lukewarm reception” from the global south, said one of the sources.

Thiru Balasubramaniam, Geneva-based representative of Knowledge Ecology International, a group that advocates for patent reform, said the “clock is ticking”.

“Strict divisions over the definition of [uma] pandemic and the language of the principles on equity and transparency provide a barometer for difficult discussions about intellectual property, access to pandemic countermeasures, transfer of technology and know-how, and research and development funding,” he said.

Other sticking points include how to regulate access by officials from groups such as the WHO to outbreak areas, the diplomats said, with Iran and China opposing more liberal measures.

This follows public reprimands by the WHO directed at China over what the UN body said was a slow and opaque approach to allowing international investigators to pursue the origins of Covid.