After three years of negotiations sparked by the COVID-19 crisis, countries have adopted the world’s first-ever international agreement to better prevent, prepare for, and respond to future pandemics.

The new accord marks a major step towards ensuring stronger global cooperation to protect lives and avoid the devastating consequences of future outbreaks.

The effects of the devastating COVID-19 pandemic are still being felt. Around seven million people died, health systems were overwhelmed, and the global economy was practically driven to a standstill.

The global turmoil prompted a stunned international community to pursue an agreement aimed at preventing such a catastrophic event from happening again – and ensuring the world is far better prepared in the future.

The landmark decision was made at the World Health Assembly, the annual meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO).

Although the formal adoption was on Tuesday, the WHO’s Member States overwhelmingly approved the agreement on Monday (124 votes in favour, zero objections, 11 abstentions).

This meant that, rather than a nail-biting vote with last-minute surprises (ahead of the conference, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, only felt able to express “cautious optimism”), the adoption by consensus had a celebratory feel.

“The agreement is a victory for public health, science and multilateral action,” declared Tedros. “It will ensure we, collectively, can better protect the world from future pandemic threats.

“It is also a recognition by the international community that our citizens, societies and economies must not be left vulnerable to again suffer losses like those endured during COVID-19.”  

‘Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’

The pandemic laid bare gross inequities between and within countries, when it came to diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines, and a core aim of the agreement is to plug gaps and treat any future pandemics in a fairer and more efficient way.

“Now that the Agreement has been brought to life, we must all act with the same urgency to implement its critical elements, including systems to ensure equitable access to life-saving pandemic-related health products,” announced Dr. Teodoro Herbosa, Secretary of the Philippines Department of Health, and President of this year’s World Health Assembly, who presided over the Agreement’s adoption.

“As COVID was a once-in-a-lifetime emergency, the WHO Pandemic Agreement offers a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build on lessons learned from that crisis and ensure people worldwide are better protected if a future pandemic emerges.”

The issue of national sovereignty has been raised several times during the process of negotiating the accord, a reflection of false online claims that WHO is somehow attempting to wrest control away from individual countries.

The accord is at pains to point out that this is not the case, stating that nothing contained within it gives WHO any authority to change or interfere with national laws, or force nations to take measures such as banning travellers, impose vaccinations or implement lockdowns.

11 abstentions and a US no-show

11 countries abstained, including Poland, Israel, Italy, Russia, Slovakia and Iran. Following the vote, the abstaining countries were given the opportunity to explain why they took this decision.

The Polish delegate explained that they could not support the treaty ahead of a domestic review, whilst Russia raised the issue of sovereignty as a concern. Iran’s representative said that “key concerns of developing countries were not addressed,” and that they regretted the “lack of binding commitments on unhindered access and equitable access to medical countermeasures, technology transfer and knowhow, and continued silence on negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on health systems.”

During the high-level segment which preceded the vote, a notable intervention came from the United States which has begun the year-long process of withdrawing from the WHO, and did not take part in the vote.

In a video addressed to the Assembly, US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy excoriated the WHO, accusing the UN agency of having “doubled down with the Pandemic Agreement which will lock in all of the dysfunction of the WHO pandemic response...we're not going to participate in that."