World Health Organization member states advanced negotiations on rules for sharing pathogens with pandemic potential and the benefits produced from their use, the WHO said in Geneva on Monday, July 20. Governments streamlined a draft annex to the WHO Pandemic Agreement but said further talks are required before the framework can be finalized.
The seventh meeting of the agreement's Intergovernmental Working Group ended on Friday after two weeks of negotiations from July 6 to 17. Countries reaffirmed support for a Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing system designed to speed the exchange of pathogen samples and genetic sequence information while distributing resulting health products more fairly.
Talks covered the contractual arrangements supporting the proposed system, the structure of laboratory networks that would share and handle pathogens and sequence data, and the definition of benefits arising from their use. Those benefits include pandemic vaccines, diagnostic tests and therapeutics, making the unfinished annex central to how future medical countermeasures could reach countries.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said differences remain but described them as bridgeable if countries maintain the shared aim of rapid scientific exchange and equitable access to resulting benefits. The working group's co-chairs reported meaningful progress on technically and politically difficult provisions while acknowledging unresolved issues.
Finalizing the annex is necessary before countries can consider signing and ratifying the broader Pandemic Agreement, according to the WHO. The World Health Assembly adopted that agreement in May 2025 to strengthen international pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, and established the open-ended working group to complete key tasks including the PABS framework.
Negotiators committed to continue intensive work, with an eighth meeting scheduled for September 14 to 18, 2026. The next session will test whether states can convert the streamlined text into consensus on laboratories, contracts and benefit definitions, steps the WHO considers critical to a faster, more effective and more equitable response when another pandemic threat emerges.
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