Pathogen benefit-sharing pact thwarted again

Deep political rifts at WHO leave a critical pandemic treaty hanging in limbo as rich nations baulk at equitable vaccine sharing

WHEN YOU watch international organisations thrash out a major new agreement, it’s a lesson in how geopolitics and rich-country heft plays out, even when it relates to something as fundamental as public health. Inevitably, developed countries manage to get their way and seal the highly unequal and iniquitous terms reached by "consensus" in multilateral fora into binding agreements. We have seen this time and again at the World Trade Organization (two).

If, however, the developing world digs its heel in, the negotiations are given a fresh lease of life, quite often for an undetermined number of years till a "consensus" more favourable to the developed world is eventually reached. This time, it was the World Health Assembly (wha) that saw another round of protracted negotiations without concluding a treaty on an improved global strategy to fight future pandemics.

The memory of covid-19 that devastated countries and communities and killed several million people worldwide just a short while ago appeared to have faded as the 194 member-states of the World Health Organization (who) failed to reach an agreement as mandated in the last week of May. The UN agency has been given another two years to conclude the pandemic treaty.

The deep differences between the developed nations and poor countries on critical measures like pathogen- and vaccine-sharing, which have marked negotiations in the UN agency for two years, were on full display once again. For one, it was a world more polarised than ever before that was meeting in Geneva in May, sharply divided over the savage war unleashed by Israel in Gaza.

This ongoing war, which has resulted in the biggest humanitarian crisis in modern times, has also blurred the lines between rich and poor nations and seen dramatic changes in strategic alliances over the genocidal Israeli assault on the Palestinian people.