It was a proud day for the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Irish epidemiologist Dr Mike Ryan, one of the most prominent global figures in the Covid-19 pandemic response.
After 3½ years of “very tough negotiations” and in a rare triumph for multilateralism, United Nations member states on Tuesday adopted by consensus the world’s first pandemic agreement at a plenary session of the 78th World Health Assembly.
The deal sets out a provisional mechanism in which participating drugs companies would aim to make 20 per cent of their real-time production of pandemic vaccines, medicines and diagnostic tests available to the WHO. These would be distributed according to public health risks and needs, with a particular focus on developing countries.
WHO director general Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told member states: “Let’s not understate what you have achieved: you have made the world a safer place.” The pandemic agreement embodies the lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic which killed up to 20 million people, according to WHO estimates.
He paid particular thanks to his WHO colleagues “who have worked tirelessly to support this process over the past few years: my deputy director general Dr Mike Ryan and Dr Jaouad Mahjour, and the many colleagues who supported them”.
Dr Ryan, who is set to leave the WHO executive amid funding cuts in the organisation, smiled broadly as he joined in the eruption of applause which greeted the adoption of the pandemic agreement.
The deal easily survived a late challenge in the committee stage from Slovakia’s prime minister, Robert Fico, a prominent vaccine sceptic who believes the agreement “violates the principle of sovereignty of the member states and disproportionately interferes with the area of human rights”. His view was given short shrift by the overwhelming majority of member states.
More than 120 countries supported the deal with none against, although 11 abstained, including Poland, Israel, Italy, Russia, Slovakia and Iran.
US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy jnr attacked the WHO as bloated and “moribund” in a video that was shown at the assembly, and he urged the world’s health ministers to take US withdrawal from WHO as “a wake-up call”. The video was greeted with silence.
Before the pandemic agreement’s ratification, an annex must be negotiated on a Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing system (Pabs) through an intergovernmental working group. The result of this process will be considered at next year’s World Health Assembly. Once the assembly adopts the Pabs annex, the WHO pandemic agreement will then be open for signature and consideration of ratification, including by national legislative bodies. After 60 ratifications, the agreement will enter into force.
WHO member states, including Ireland, also approved on Tuesday a 20 per cent increase in assessed contributions, or membership dues, as they endorsed the WHO’s 2026-27 budget of $4.2 billion.
