Remember
the pandemic

We cannot undo the past, but we can change the future.

It is estimated that 22.1 million excess deaths happened during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many would still be alive today were it not for the staggering inequity that left developing countries waiting for life-saving vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics while wealthy countries secured the overwhelming share of available supplies.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the brutal cost of inequality in access to life-saving tools. Real people paid the price for vaccine inequality. Frontline healthcare workers fell ill unprotected. Families buried relatives who could have been saved. Communities waited many months for vaccines that arrived too late. This is not new — inequality has defined every public health emergency.

Developing countries consistently bear this burden. Essential life-saving vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics, often developed from pathogen materials and genomic sequences shared by those very countries remain out of reach, while corporations monopolize the gains and profit immensely.

Members of the World Health Organization (WHO) are now negotiating a Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) System under the Pandemic Agreement to end this cycle. But the EU and Norway are blocking it, by opposing proposals that would make PABS transparent, accountable, and equitable. Instead they demand a PABS design that would permit pathogen access without terms of use, allow anonymous pathogen data access, let industry dodge enforceable benefit-sharing obligations, such as revenue-linked monetary contributions, manufacturing licenses, and guaranteed product set-asides to prevent and respond to health emergencies.

Europe, Norway and other rich countries cannot undo the past. But they can choose a different future. Tell European and Norwegian decision-makers to stop blocking equity and support a fair, accountable PABS System, before the next pandemic proves we learned nothing.

SIGN THE PETITION AND MAKE YOUR VOICE COUNT FOR AN ACCOUNTABLE, FAIR AND EQUITABLE PABS SYSTEM.


LETTER TO EU AND NORWAY AUTHORITIES

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to champion a transparent, fair, accountable and equitable Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) System currently under negotiation at the World Health Organization (WHO) as part of the Pandemic Agreement.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the devastating consequences of delayed and inequitable access to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. Millions of lives were needlessly lost, particularly in developing countries. For every life lost in a rich country another four people have died in a poorer nation. This pattern has been repeated in other health emergencies, including Ebola and Mpox outbreaks, where affected developing countries have again been denied timely access to life-saving health technologies.

The PABS System is intended to end this cycle by ensuring that the sharing of pathogen materials and genetic sequence data for research and product development is subject to legally enforceable terms and conditions, so that the resulting benefits—including timely access to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics—are shared fairly and equitably.

European leaders have pledged to build "a robust international health architecture" based on international solidarity and cooperation 1. Yet the positions taken by European negotiators stand in stark contrast to those commitments, and are deeply troubling and unconscionable. They seek to weaken key elements of a transparent and accountable PABS System, including legal certainty, user identification and traceability, and an equal footing between pathogen access and benefit-sharing. In doing so, they depart from both the Pandemic Agreement and internationally accepted elements and principles on access and benefit-sharing.

A PABS System worthy of the lives lost during COVID-19 must be built on foundations strong enough to withstand the next major health emergency. It must provide:

  • Benefit-sharing: Benefit-sharing must be meaningful, fair and equitable, measurable, timely and capable of addressing the inequities exposed during past health emergencies. Benefit sharing should include non-exclusive manufacturing licenses that allow developing-country manufacturers to rapidly scale up supply, alongside guaranteed set-asides of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics for rapid distribution during outbreaks and public health emergencies of international concern as well as revenue linked monetary contributions. Benefit sharing obligations should also be predictable and enforceable, not left to voluntary arrangements or a list of vague/general options, subject to bilateral negotiations with WHO.
  • Legal certainty through binding enforceable access and benefit sharing contracts: Legal certainty requires standardised contracts between WHO and every recipient of PABS resources, setting clear rules on terms of use including onward transfers, intellectual property, benefit-sharing obligations and consequences for non-compliance. In the absence of such a standardised contract, there cannot be any legal certainty.
  • Accountability through user registration and data access agreement: Anonymous access is unacceptable. Access to pathogen sequence information should require identity verification subject to acceptance of standardised contract. Already most European countries share sequence information of pathogens causing influenza and Covid-19 with a database having user registration and data access agreement, though without any benefit sharing obligations. The EU's new regulation on health data spaces also promotes such practices. Instead of advancing this practice, by attaching fair and equitable benefit sharing obligations, the EU is opposing these practices. Without user registration and data access agreement, there can be no transparency, traceability or effective operationalization of benefit sharing.

Every element currently on the negotiating table has real consequences for life and death, determining whether developing countries will have timely and equitable access to essential health products. I urge you to honour those who were failed by inequities during the COVID-19 response by ensuring that this injustice is not repeated. I trust you will do what is right.

READ THE PETITION

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