No deal. That was the message from World Health Organization (WHO) director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Friday after a proposed pandemic treaty was rejected in Geneva, Switzerland, after two years of closed-door talks.
AP Reports Roland Dries, co-chair of the WHO’s negotiating committee, acknowledged that countries had failed to submit a draft agreement. The WHO had hoped that a final treaty would be agreed at its annual meeting of health ministers, which begins on Monday in Geneva.
“We are not where we hoped to be when we started this process,” he said, adding that reaching an international agreement on how to respond to the pandemic was crucial “for the sake of humanity” even though many countries disagree with the fundamental principle that unelected, unaccountable health officials should somehow be able to make major global decisions about government policy.
Earlier this month, Republican senators wrote to the Biden administration, arguing that the draft treaty focuses on issues such as “the destruction of intellectual property rights” and “undue pressure on the WHO.” They urged President Biden not to sign it.
The House Freedom Caucus sent a letter to Biden urging him to oppose the WHO’s push for a “global pandemic treaty.” https://t.co/3l9IUel17X
—Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) May 24, 2022
Dries said he would urge participants at next week’s World Health Assembly to make “the right decisions to move this process forward” to one day reach a pandemic agreement, “because that’s what we need.”
Speaking in a somber mood on the final day of negotiations, the WHO director-general insisted that “this is not a failure”.
“We believe anything is possible and we will try everything to make this happen because the world still needs a pandemic treaty,” Tedros said, “because many of the challenges that caused such severe impacts during COVID-19 still exist.”
Despite the desire of WHO career bureaucrats to push ahead with the plan, the UK Department of Health has already stated that it will only agree to the deal if it respects UK national interests and sovereignty.
UK refuses to sign WHO global vaccine treaty, saying it would ‘undermine sovereignty’ https://t.co/Wgn3DkuZvr
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 9, 2024
The co-chairs of the treaty drafting process did not say what had caused the impasse, but diplomats said major gaps remained over the sharing of information about emerging pathogens and technology to fight them, The Associated Press reported.
Precious Matsosso, the other co-chair of the WHO pandemic treaty negotiating committee, said despite the failure to reach an agreement on Friday, there was still a chance to reach an agreement and efforts would continue.
“We are going to make sure this happens because when the next pandemic hits, we will not be the exception,” she said.
