Pandemic Treaty adopted via CONSENSUS
Despite Slovakia demanding a vote--I told you WHO hates votes
From the WHO
Agreement’s adoption follows three years of intensive negotiation launched due to gaps and inequities identified in national and global COVID-19 response.
Agreement boosts global collaboration to ensure stronger, more equitable response to future pandemics.
Next steps include negotiations on Pathogen Access and Benefits Sharing system.
Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) today formally adopted by consensus the world's first Pandemic Agreement. The landmark decision by the 78th World Health Assembly culminates more than three years of intensive negotiations launched by governments in response to the devastating impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, and driven by the goal of making the world safer from – and more equitable in response to – future pandemics.
“The world is safer today thanks to the leadership, collaboration and commitment of our Member States to adopt the historic WHO Pandemic Agreement,” said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “The Agreement is a victory for public health, science and multilateral action. 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.”
Governments adopted the WHO Pandemic Agreement today in a plenary session of the World Health Assembly, WHO’s peak decision-making body. The adoption followed yesterday’s approval of the Agreement by vote (124 in favour, 0 objections, 11 abstentions) in Committee by Member State delegations.
“Starting during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments from all corners of the world acted with great purpose, dedication and urgency, and in doing so exercising their national sovereignty, to negotiate the historic WHO Pandemic Agreement that has been adopted today,” said 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. “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. 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 WHO Pandemic Agreement sets out the principles, approaches and tools for better international coordination across a range of areas, in order to strengthen the global health architecture for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. This includes through the equitable and timely access to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.
Regarding national sovereignty, the Agreement states that: “Nothing in the WHO Pandemic Agreement shall be interpreted as providing the Secretariat of the World Health Organization, including the Director-General of the World Health Organization, any authority to direct, order, alter or otherwise prescribe the national and/or domestic law, as appropriate, or policies of any Party, or to mandate or otherwise impose any requirements that Parties take specific actions, such as ban or accept travellers, impose vaccination mandates or therapeutic or diagnostic measures or implement lockdowns.”
[Those provisions were in earlier drafts, but removed—Nass]
Notes for editors
The resolution on the WHO Pandemic Agreement adopted by the World Health Assembly sets out steps to prepare for the accord’s implementation. It includes launching a process to draft and negotiate a Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing system (PABS) through an Intergovernmental Working Group (IGWG). The result of this process will be considered at next year’s World Health Assembly.
Once the Assembly adopts the PABS annex, the WHO Pandemic Agreement will then be open for signature and consideration of ratification, including by national legislative bodies. After 60 ratifications, the Agreement will enter into force.
In addition, Member States also directed the IGWG to initiate steps to enable setting up of the Coordinating Financial Mechanism for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, and the Global Supply Chain and Logistics Network (GSCL) to “enhance, facilitate, and work to remove barriers and ensure equitable, timely, rapid, safe, and affordable access to pandemic-related health products for countries in need during public health emergencies of international concern, including pandemic emergencies, and for prevention of such emergencies.”
According to the Agreement, pharmaceutical manufacturers participating in the PABS system will play a key role in equitable and timely access to pandemic-related health products by making available to WHO “rapid access targeting 20% of their real time production of safe, quality and effective vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics for the pathogen causing the pandemic emergency.” The distribution of these products to countries will be carried out on the basis of public health risk and need, with particular attention to the needs of developing countries.
[But the pharmaceutical companies have not formally agreed to the yet—Nass]
The WHO Pandemic Agreement is the second international legal agreement negotiated under Article 19 of the WHO Constitution, the first being the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which was adopted in 2003 and entered into force in 2005.
From the South China Post, Reuters and the AP:
Published: 4:15pm, 20 May 2025Updated: 6:35pm, 20 May 2025 Singapore time
Members of the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted a landmark agreement on Tuesday on how to prepare for future pandemics following the Covid-19 outbreak, which killed millions of people between 2020 and 2022.
After three years of negotiations, the legally binding pact was adopted by the World Health Assembly in Geneva. WHO member countries welcomed its passing with applause.
The pact was widely seen as a victory for members of the global health agency at a time when multilateral organisations like the WHO have been battered by sharp cuts in US foreign funding.
“The agreement is a victory for public health, science and multilateral action. It will ensure we, collectively, can better protect the world from future pandemic threats,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
He also touted the agreement as “historic” during a time when many countries are putting national interests ahead of shared values and cooperation.
The treaty guarantees that countries which share virus samples will receive tests, medicines and vaccines. Up to 20 per cent of such products would be given to the WHO to ensure poorer countries have some access to them when the next pandemic hits.
However, US negotiators left discussions about the accord after President Donald Trump began a 12-month process of withdrawing the US – by far the WHO’s largest financial backer – from the agency when he took office in January.
Given this, the US, which poured billions of dollars into vaccine development during the Covid-19 pandemic, would not be bound by the pact. And WHO member states would not face penalties if they fail to implement it.
Dr. Esperance Luvindao, Namibia’s health minister and the chair of a committee that paved the way for Tuesday’s adoption, said the pandemic inflicted huge costs “on lives, livelihoods and economies”.
“We – as sovereign states – have resolved to join hands, as one world together, so we can protect our children, elders, frontline health workers and all others from the next pandemic,” Luvindao added. “It is our duty and responsibility to humanity.”
The deal was reached after Slovakia called for a vote on Monday, as its Covid vaccine sceptic prime minister demanded that his country challenge the adoption of the agreement.
Some health experts welcomed the treaty as a step towards greater fairness in global health after poorer nations were left short of vaccines and diagnostics during the pandemic.
“It contains critical provisions, especially in research and development, that – if implemented – could shift the global pandemic response toward greater equity,” said Michelle Childs, Policy Advocacy Director at Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative.
Others said the agreement did not meet initial ambitions and that without strong implementation frameworks it risked falling short in a future pandemic.
“It is an empty shell … It’s difficult to say that it’s a treaty with firm obligation where there is a strong commitment … It’s a good starting point. But it will have to be developed,” said Gian Luca Burci, an academic adviser at the Global Health Centre at the Geneva Graduate Institute, an independent research and education organisation.
The pact will not go into effect until an annex on sharing of pathogenic information is agreed. Negotiations on this will start in July with the aim of delivering the annex to the World Health Assembly for adoption, the WHO said. A Western diplomatic source suggested it may take up to two years to be agreed.
I think the global population has had enough with this plandemic bs.
<<“We – as sovereign states – have resolved to join hands, as one world together, so we can protect our children, elders, frontline health workers and all others from the next pandemic,” Luvindao added. “It is our duty and responsibility to humanity.”>>
Ah, yes. They're concerned about the children. The children, the children. Not much to say about imported UK grooming gangs abusing young British girls for decades. Not reluctant to push sexual depravity on school-age children worldwide. Not embarrassed about constructing Panamanian migrant camps aiding invasion and human (child) trafficking across our southern border.
But one can say this for them: They really can commit to the Big Lie.