Negotiations on a landmark global agreement to deal with future pandemics ended on Friday without a deal, though countries said they would continue to push for one.
Scarred by the devastation caused by Covid-19, which killed millions of people, shredded economies, and crippled health-care systems, countries have spent two years attempting to reach binding agreements on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response.
The talks gained traction in the final weeks, but were unable to meet a final deadline before next week’s World Health Assembly, the annual gathering of the World Health Organization’s 194 member states.
“This is not a failure,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus insisted after the talks concluded at the UN health agency’s headquarters in Geneva. He encouraged countries to see it as a “good opportunity to re-energise.” “The world still needs a pandemic treaty and the world needs to be prepared,” he said.
The assembly, which lasts from Monday to June 1, will take stock and decide what to do next. The talks’ co-chairs, Roland Driece and Precious Matsoso, told AFP that countries clearly wanted to reach an agreement.
“It’s not the end,” Matsoso emphasised, noting that the same ministers who decided to pursue a pandemic agreement would be in charge of determining the next steps. “They are the ones who will say, ‘OK, you haven’t completed this. “Please go back and finalise it,” she said.
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