The agreement (now officially called the Pandemic Agreement) aims to prevent a repeat of the glaring inequalities that manifested themselves during the Covid pandemic. Until now, it seemed unlikely that negotiators would be able to agree on a plan that comes close to it in the United States. The time has come for the World Health Assembly on May 27, when the 194 member states of the World Health Organization (WHO) will vote on whether to seal the deal. . . or not.
A Lancet editorial called an earlier edition of the draft agreement “unfair” and “shameful” because it was watered down and stripped of its original purpose of protecting all people, rich or poor. The February edition was rejected by the press. The African fitness body, Africa CDC, because it contained serious double standards that would basically benefit rich countries. This was stated by Fifa Rahman, advisor to the negotiators of Africa CDC, who participated in a webinar on February 29.
The new text comes much closer to anything that would put Africa on a solid footing to deal with the next pandemic. There is an encouraging detail, for example, in the segment on the proposed Pathogen Access and Benefit-sharing System (PABS). The PABS is meant to be a surveillance tool, as scientists around the world will have a duty to determine percentages of the genetic codes of new diseases that they detect that could lead to a pandemic. No one can patent the genetic codes received through PABS. however, the new text now also commits anyone designing a generation or a PABS drug to “share in the benefits” (albeit with large reservations).
Still, the text is far from the best and only one update remains before the May assembly in Geneva.
The point is that African negotiators are using the little time they have left to capitalize on the sudden and renewed political momentum.
On the one hand, the draft text still leaves too much wiggle room for pharmaceutical corporations to repeat the hypocritical approaches they are so prone to. Didn’t South Africa have to pay twice as much as the European Union paid for Johnson’s Covid vaccine?
The most recent text of the Pandemic Agreement may simply guarantee access to equipment designed for PABS, but what about other innovations?
Currently, the draft agreement commits large pharmaceutical corporations to publish patents for treatments, vaccines or diagnostics they offer in the event of a health emergency, but they do not yet have a legal responsibility to help others understand how to make a patent functional. and product. final product.
In the public parlance of the fitness world, this is called “technology transfer. “The legal network would refer to them as trade secrets.
Without generational transfer, what brands have to do is make an amateur baker have to make a confusing dessert with just a list of ingredients.
Early versions of the text better guaranteed this technology, but it has completely disappeared.
Fortunately, legal experts have already come up with a plan.
Wording for the Medicines Act
In the event of a pandemic, or risk of a pandemic, it would be conceivable that WHO Member States would force a pharmaceutical company to share “undisclosed information” (trade secrets) if they believe it may be essential in combating a global health risk.
This would take place in two stages, Garrison says. First, the government of the country in which the company is founded will have to pressure the company to voluntarily share this knowledge. If this takes too long or doesn’t work, a safeguard can be implemented. the procedure is initiated (if the pharmaceutical company is located in a WHO State Party).
In this scenario, the company would be forced to share its secrets with qualified brands around the world.
This is the kind of transparency we want so that long-term health crises have different end results than what we just experienced.
In a welcome break with the old secrecy surrounding such negotiations, the European Union has posted online the deletions and additions it has proposed.
We challenge other countries in the North to do the same. In the UK, US, Canada and elsewhere: If you need to inform corporations that they are putting global fitness safety at risk, at least leave it in advance.
All of those actors – whether Big Pharma or the government – have shown us that our African lives are useless to them, to the benefits of maintaining injustice in fitness.
We’ll never have to let them. We will have to fight to make sure that any agreement or agreement entered into on our behalf is enforceable, not based on charity or mercy, and rooted in accountability and not secrecy.
Tian Johnson (they/them) is the founder and strategist of the nonprofit African Health Advocacy Alliance. Click to subscribe to their newsletter.
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