Pathogens without payback: when sharing isn’t caring

The WHO Pandemic Agreement was adopted by the World Health Assembly on 20 May 2025 — a landmark global treaty on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and respo...

What Happened

The WHO Pandemic Agreement was adopted by the World Health Assembly on 20 May 2025 — a landmark global treaty on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response — but a critical annex on Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) remained unfinalized.
WHO Member States agreed to extend negotiations on the PABS annex, with a fresh round of discussions scheduled from 27 April to 1 May 2026, ahead of consideration at the 79th World Health Assembly in May 2026.
The core equity problem: pathogen samples critical to vaccine and therapeutic development are disproportionately sourced from the Global South (where outbreaks frequently emerge), but the medical products developed using that data — vaccines, diagnostics, treatments — have historically been concentrated in and available primarily to wealthier nations.
The COVID-19 pandemic starkly illustrated this asymmetry: developing nations shared viral sequences rapidly, but faced severe delays accessing vaccines, with COVAX unable to bridge the supply gap during the first year of rollout.
Key unresolved issues in PABS negotiations include: defining the scope of pathogens covered (especially those with zoonotic origins), enforcing mandatory benefit-sharing obligations on pharmaceutical manufacturers, establishing transparent criteria for product allocation, and harmonizing the system with existing frameworks like the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol.
The structural argument is that pathogen data constitutes a global public good at the point of sharing, but the medical products derived from it are then privatized — the PABS framework seeks to correct this by making access conditional on equitable benefit return.

Static Topic Bridges

The Nagoya Protocol is a 2010 supplementary agreement to the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), adopted on 29 October 2010 in Nagoya, Japan. It entered into force on 12 October 2014 and has been ratified by 142 parties (141 UN member states + the EU) as of August 2025. The Protocol establishes the legal architecture for fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the utilization of genetic resources.

Core mechanism: Prior Informed Consent (PIC) and Mutually Agreed Terms (MAT) must be secured before accessing biological or genetic resources of another country
An ABS Clearing-House (ABSCH) facilitates information sharing on national requirements and compliance
Covers genetic resources AND traditional knowledge associated with those resources
India enacted the Biological Diversity Act, 2002 (preceding the Nagoya Protocol) and subsequently aligned national regulations with Nagoya requirements through Biological Diversity (Amendment) Act, 2023
The Protocol has generated 130+ national ABS laws globally since adoption

Connection to this news: The PABS framework within the WHO Pandemic Agreement is explicitly modeled on — and must harmonize with — the Nagoya Protocol's ABS principles. The challenge is that pathogen samples (particularly those with pandemic potential) have characteristics that do not map cleanly onto the Nagoya framework, creating jurisdictional and definitional tensions.

COVAX and Vaccine Equity — Lessons from COVID-19

COVAX (COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access) was the vaccine pillar of the ACT Accelerator, co-led by CEPI, Gavi, and WHO, designed to ensure equitable global access to COVID-19 vaccines regardless of countries' ability to pay. It aimed to deliver 2 billion doses to 92 lower-income economies by end-2021.

COVAX fell significantly short of its 2021 targets — delivering approximately 900 million doses by end-2021 against a target of 2 billion
High-income countries' advance purchase agreements with manufacturers created a queue that placed COVAX orders behind bilateral deals
By December 2021, high-income countries had administered over 60% of global vaccine doses despite comprising ~16% of the world's population
The "vaccine apartheid" critique highlighted the structural failure: pathogen sequences shared freely, but the resulting vaccines purchased and hoarded through bilateral deals
The mRNA technology transfer hub established by WHO in South Africa aimed to address manufacturing capacity gaps in the Global South

Connection to this news: COVAX's failures are the direct empirical foundation for the PABS framework — negotiators are designing a legally binding system to prevent the same asymmetry in the next pandemic by conditioning pathogen data access on guaranteed benefit return.

International Health Regulations (IHR) and WHO's Legal Architecture

The International Health Regulations (IHR, 2005) are the primary binding international legal instrument governing global health security, adopted by the World Health Assembly under Article 21 of the WHO Constitution. They establish obligations for all 196 WHO member states to develop core public health capacities and report events of potential international concern.

IHR (2005) introduced the concept of Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) — declared by the WHO Director-General when an event is extraordinary, constitutes a public health risk internationally, and requires a coordinated international response
COVID-19 was declared a PHEIC on 30 January 2020; upgraded to a pandemic on 11 March 2020
The IHR were amended at the 77th World Health Assembly (May 2024) to strengthen surveillance, timely information sharing, and equity provisions
The WHO Pandemic Agreement (2025) is designed to complement, not replace, the IHR — filling gaps in prevention, preparedness, and equitable access to pandemic tools

Connection to this news: The WHO Pandemic Agreement's PABS framework will sit alongside the IHR in WHO's legal architecture. While the IHR governs information sharing and emergency response, PABS specifically addresses the benefit-sharing gap — ensuring that pathogen data shared under IHR obligations generates returns for contributing countries.

PIP Framework — Precedent for PABS

The Pandemic Influenza Preparedness (PIP) Framework, adopted by the World Health Assembly in 2011, is the direct institutional predecessor to the PABS concept. It governs sharing of influenza viruses with pandemic potential and establishes a benefit-sharing mechanism.

Established after Indonesia refused to share H5N1 influenza samples in 2006–2007, citing lack of benefit return — known as the "Indonesian moment"
WHO Member States share influenza viruses with pandemic potential through WHO's Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS)
In return, manufacturers and other entities using GISRS must contribute 50% of their influenza vaccine production capacity or 10% of real-time pandemic vaccine production as in-kind contributions, or pay into a partnership contribution fund
Limited scope: applies only to influenza; PABS would extend similar principles to all pathogens with pandemic potential

Connection to this news: The PIP Framework is both the model and the cautionary tale for PABS — it proved the concept of conditional pathogen access with benefit return works for influenza but demonstrated how narrow scope and weak enforcement allow the equity gap to persist for other pathogens.

Key Facts & Data

WHO Pandemic Agreement adopted: 20 May 2025 at the 78th World Health Assembly
PABS negotiations resumed: 27 April–1 May 2026, ahead of the 79th World Health Assembly (May 2026)
Nagoya Protocol adopted: 29 October 2010, entered into force: 12 October 2014; 142 parties as of August 2025
COVAX target: 2 billion doses by end-2021; delivered approximately 900 million doses
COVID-19 PHEIC declared: 30 January 2020; pandemic declared: 11 March 2020
IHR 2005 amended at 77th World Health Assembly, May 2024
PIP Framework adopted: 2011 — covers only influenza viruses with pandemic potential
Indonesia's refusal to share H5N1 samples (2006–07) directly triggered the PIP Framework negotiations
India's Biological Diversity Act: 2002; amended in 2023 to align with Nagoya Protocol obligations