World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged countries on November 2 to finish the pandemic agreement’s outstanding pathogen-sharing rules. Opening talks in Geneva, he cited Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and this year’s hantavirus outbreak as reminders that health threats cross borders.
The ninth meeting of the intergovernmental working group runs from November 2 to 13, according to WHO. Countries adopted the broader agreement in May 2025, but its Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing annex, known as PABS, remains unfinished. The group is developing operational details for the international framework.
PABS concerns access to pathogen samples and genetic sequence data, alongside benefits from their use. Euronews, reporting with AFP, said wealthy and developing countries still disagree over practical arrangements. The mechanism links sharing pathogens with fair distribution of resulting vaccines, diagnostic tests and treatments.
Tedros said COVID-19 exposed the consequences of separating those two forms of access. Vaccines arrived at unprecedented speed, yet many countries waited while others secured excess supplies. In his assessment, that imbalance cost lives, extended the pandemic and raised the risk of new variants.
Hans Kluge, WHO’s European regional director, said timely vaccines and affordable medicines were recurring concerns in his meetings across all six WHO regions, Euronews reported. Kluge, on special leave while seeking the WHO leadership, called for rapid sample and data sharing alongside fair access to the medical products developed from them.
Tedros asked delegates to seek solutions, separate essential demands from desirable ones and judge proposals by public-health benefits. His opening remarks announced no completed deal. The task for this round is to build workable rules that can improve with experience and help countries respond faster and more fairly to the next pandemic threat.
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