WHO Member States agree to extend negotiations on Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing annex

Key points

• Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) have progressed work on the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) annex, a key part of the WHO Pandemic Agreement, and today agreed additional time was needed to finalize the framework for ensuring a better, more equitable, response to future pandemics.
• Countries today ended the resumed session of the sixth meeting of the Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG) on the WHO Pandemic Agreement in Geneva, focused on the PABS system.
• The outcome of this work will be presented to the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly (WHA) later this month.
• Given the need for further negotiations, the Assembly will be asked to consider continuing IGWG’s work as mandated in Resolution WHA78.1 and submit the outcome to the next Assembly in May 2027, or earlier by a special session of WHA in 2026. “Real progress was made on the PABS annex and I am confident through...