Pandemic Treaty Falters, Stand Off Between Rich and Poor

By | May 30, 2024

NEW YORK, May 31 (C-Fam) The much-touted global pandemic accord was dealt a severe blow this week as countries could not agree on over half of the thirty-four articles of the draft treaty in time for the World Health Assembly this week.

From the outset, the pandemic treaty was intended as a way to channel money for global health infrastructure and establish technology transfer mechanisms for poor countries. While developing countries were interested in the pandemic treaty and the money attached, rich Western countries were always more interested in bulking up the power of the World Health Organization (WHO) through changes to the already existing agreement called the International Health Regulations.

The proposed U.S. changes enhance the power of the Director-General of the WHO to declare and manage international health emergencies and give the organization a greater say in how countries design their health systems overall. The changes were supposed to be agreed in tandem with the pandemic accord this week.

Now, the Biden administration and European powers want to adopt the changes to the regulations tomorrow without making any specific promises to provide global health assistance in the now-stalled pandemic treaty. The U.S. and Europeans are asking poor countries to trust them that some kind of compromise can be reached eventually.

The African Group is insisting that the already agreed articles of the pandemic treaty must be preserved and that a path to adopt a pandemic treaty and concrete commitments to provide global health assistance were necessary before any U.S.-backed changes to International Health Regulations could be adopted.

The U.S. insists that the health regulations go ahead now. U.S. Ambassador Pamela K. Hamamoto threatened developing world delegates that if they failed to adopt the U.S. changes to the International Health Regulations they would “severely jeopardize an opportunity to make the world safer.” She also shot down the Africans’ requests for a speedy process to adopt a pandemic treaty as a “mandate for failure.”

She told delegates that a pandemic treaty required an entirely new process of negotiations starting from scratch and a much longer negotiation, possibly as many as two more years, because of “complex technical issues that require extensive deliberations.”

The German ambassador at the World Health Assembly was equally dismissive of the requests of developing countries and called on delegates to “focus on the International Health Regulations.”

“The International Health Regulations can be finalized in this meeting this week. It is more important to have more funding than more funding instruments,” he said, referring to unspecific commitments to foreign assistance in the International Health Regulations.

“Our children will not forgive us,” he said, if delegates did not go along with the U.S. amendments to the International Health Regulations.

Other issues that transpired during the debate on the way forward on Tuesday included calls for respect for sovereignty and national control of health policy from countries across the world, including Russian Federation, Gulf states, Israel, and others.

A delegate from Belarus also criticized efforts to try to isolate vaccine manufacturers from liability for vaccine injuries.

“People should not be used as guinea pigs,” she said.

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