The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has pointed out that "progress" has been made during the eighth session of the Intergovernmental Working Group on the Pandemic Agreement, focused on the annex related to the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing System (PABS, for its acronym in English).
At the end of the five days of deliberations, Adhanom Ghebreyesus emphasized that the process is closer to fulfilling the "promise" made after Covid-19 to "not leave the world so vulnerable to the next pandemic as it was to" this one.
The PABS annex constitutes one of the pillars of the Pandemic Agreement, approved by the World Health Assembly in 2025, and its content determines whether the treaty can be signed and ratified. Its purpose is to facilitate the exchange of materials and information on pathogen sequences with pandemic potential and to ensure an equitable distribution of vaccines, treatments, and diagnostic tools developed from such resources.
The meeting of the intergovernmental group has taken place on the eve of the Second High-Level Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, and Response, convened for September 25 in New York (United States).
In this forum, which will bring together heads of state and government to strengthen political support for the prevention of future health crises, a political declaration will be considered that calls for, among other aspects, the timely completion of the PABS annex.
"As leaders prepare to meet at the United Nations General Assembly, the message from Geneva is clear: protecting future generations requires commitment, cooperation, and urgency. The completion of the PABS annex is essential to strengthen the world's collective defenses against future pandemic threats," stated the WHO official.