Africa: Open Letter to Leaders of G7, G20, Brics and All Nations On Finalizing the WHO Pandemic Agreement's Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing Annex
A group of global health advocates has written directly to the heads of the G7, G20, BRICS, and all national governments, calling on them to finalize the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing annex attached to the World Health Organization's Pandemic Agreement.
The open letter arrives at a critical moment in international health negotiations. The main body of the WHO Pandemic Agreement was adopted earlier, but the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing annex, which determines how countries share viral samples and how benefits from those samples are distributed, remains unfinished. The writers are pushing leaders to close that gap now.
At the heart of the letter is a fairness argument. Lower-income countries, many of them in Africa, have historically contributed biological samples and pathogen data that helped produce vaccines and treatments they later struggled to access or afford. The annex is meant to correct that imbalance by creating binding commitments around sharing both the materials and the rewards.
The letter lands on the desks of some of the most powerful governments in the world, which means its reception could shape whether the final agreement has real teeth or becomes another diplomatic document that looks good on paper. Watch this space.
Originally published by AllAfrica · info@who.int (WHO).