The pandemic treaty is weakening, the gap between rich and poor

NEW YORK, May 31 (C-Fam) A much-touted global agreement on the pandemic took a major hit this week as countries could not agree on more than half of the draft treaty’s thirty-four articles in time for this week’s World Health Assembly week.

From the outset, the pandemic treaty was intended to direct money toward global health infrastructure and establish technology transfer mechanisms for poor countries. While developing countries have been interested in the pandemic treaty and the money that comes with it, wealthy Western countries have always been more interested in increasing the power of the World Health Organization (WHO) through changes to an already existing agreement called the International Health Regulations.

The proposed changes in the US increase the powers of the WHO Director-General to declare and manage international health emergencies, and give the organization greater influence over the overall way countries design their health systems. The changes were due to be agreed this week along with the pandemic deal.

Now the Biden administration and European powers want to pass regulatory changes tomorrow without making any specific promises to provide global health aid under a pandemic treaty that is currently stalled. The United States and Europeans are asking poor countries to trust that they will eventually reach some compromise.

The African Group insists that the pandemic treaty articles already agreed should be retained and that, before adopting any U.S.-backed changes to international health regulations, it is necessary to chart a path for the adoption of a pandemic treaty and specific commitments to provide global health assistance.

The United States insists that health regulations remain in place. U.S. Ambassador Pamela K. Hamamoto threatened delegates from developing countries that if they did not adopt U.S. changes to the International Health Regulations, they would “seriously jeopardize the opportunity to make the world safer.” She also rejected Africans’ requests for a quick process to adopt a pandemic treaty, calling them a “mandate for failure.”

She told delegates that a pandemic treaty would require an entirely new negotiation process starting from scratch and much longer negotiations, perhaps as long as two more years, because of “complicated technical issues requiring extensive consideration.”

The German ambassador to the World Health Assembly was equally dismissive of requests from developing countries and urged delegates to “focus on the International Health Regulations.”

“International health regulations could be finalized at this meeting this week. It is more important to have more resources than more financial instruments,” he said, referring to the non-specific foreign aid commitments contained in the International Health Regulations.

“Our children will not forgive us,” he said, if delegates disagreed with U.S. amendments to the International Health Regulations.

Other issues that emerged during Tuesday’s debate on the way forward included calls for respect for sovereignty and national control of health policy from countries around the world, including the Russian Federation, Gulf states, Israel and others.

The delegate from Belarus also criticized efforts to insulate vaccine manufacturers from liability for post-vaccination damage.

“Humans should not be used as guinea pigs,” she said.