24MAY

WHO defers vaccine-sharing pact to 2027

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WHA79 deferred the Pandemic Agreement's vaccine-sharing annex to 2027, leaving the treaty's equity core inoperative during an emergency that has no licensed product to share.

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Key takeaway

The treaty's vaccine-sharing core stays unfinished until 2027, just as an outbreak with no licensed product needs it.

The 79th World Health Assembly (WHA79) deferred adoption of the Pandemic Agreement's Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) annex to WHA80 in May 2027, or to an earlier special session if a text is ready ¹. The next negotiating round, the seventh Intergovernmental Working Group session (IGWG7), is set for 6 to 17 July 2026 ². PABS is the part of the treaty meant to guarantee that countries which share virus samples receive fair access to the vaccines made from them. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said real progress had been made, and member states cited a need for more time ³.

This is the second slip in a month: negotiators had already agreed to extend the PABS talks at the resumed sixth IGWG session on 1 May . The annex has stalled because high-income states resist binding sharing obligations they fear will constrain their own manufacturers, the same fault line that has dogged every benefit-sharing negotiation since the 2007 dispute over Indonesian H5N1 samples.

The timing gives the deferral its edge. The treaty's vaccine-sharing core stays inoperative at the exact moment a novel-species emergency with no licensed countermeasure would have tested it. If a Bundibugyo vaccine reaches trials this year, there is still no binding legal route to push doses to the low-income countries carrying the outbreak; allocation stays at the discretion of manufacturers and the buyers WHO can pay first. The world adopted the treaty in 2024 and, two years on, still cannot do the one thing its equity advocates designed it to do.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

When a new dangerous virus emerges, countries need to share samples of it quickly so that scientists around the world can study it and start making vaccines. The problem is that in past pandemics, like H1N1 in 2009, the countries that shared their virus samples did not get any of the vaccines that were made from those samples. Rich countries bought them all first. PABS (Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing) is meant to be the rule that fixes this: countries share samples and in return get guaranteed access to vaccines produced from them. The 79th World Health Assembly, which met in Geneva in May 2026, pushed the decision on PABS to a 2027 meeting because member states cannot agree on how the rules would work in practice. During the current Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak, there is no licensed vaccine for this species at all; the PABS negotiations apply to future outbreaks where a sharing-and-access mechanism could make the difference between equitable and inequitable vaccine distribution.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: In 2007, Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari refused to share H5N1 samples with the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance Network, arguing that Indonesia was contributing virus samples but receiving no guaranteed access to vaccines produced from them. She termed it 'viral sovereignty.' The impasse lasted two years and directly prompted the 2011 Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework, a partial PABS precursor specifically for influenza.

In 2009, when H1N1 pandemic vaccines were produced, high-income countries pre-purchased 90% of early supply, leaving WHO with 10% for low-income countries despite verbal commitments. PABS is the attempt to codify what the 2011 PIP Framework achieved for influenza across all pandemic pathogens, and is failing for the same structural reason: manufacturers in high-income countries resist binding production mandates while Global South countries resist contributing samples without guaranteed access.

Counter-parallel: The Nagoya Protocol on Access and Benefit-Sharing (2010, entered into force 2014) created a binding framework for sharing genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, but its implementation has been patchy even after 15 years, with pharmaceutical companies routinely contesting 'utilisation' definitions. PABS risks a similar post-adoption implementation gap even if a text is agreed at WHA80.

Consensus view: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung's Geneva multilateral dialogue team assessed that the WHA79 deferral, extending the stalemate from the 1 May resumed 6th IGWG session , leaves the Pandemic Agreement legally unratifiable for at least another year; PABS is the mechanism meant to guarantee that countries sharing pathogen samples receive fair access to vaccines produced from them.

Without a resolved annex, the Agreement cannot enter into force regardless of how many countries sign the core text.

Counter-view: Fiocruz (Brazil's Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, the largest public health research institution in Latin America) argued through its Geneva representatives that the PABS deferral is better understood as Brazil, India and Indonesia successfully resisting a text that would have formalised technology-transfer obligations without binding timelines; the deferral preserves negotiating leverage for Global South countries rather than simply extending a stalemate, and a rushed PABS text that favoured industry over equitable access would be worse than no text at all.

Key tension: Whether the seventh IGWG session in July 2026 can resolve the core dispute (which countries own the value of pathogen samples they share, and which factories in which countries are obliged to produce vaccines) when the same dispute has blocked consensus since the Pandemic Agreement was adopted at WHA78 in May 2025.

Sources:Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Geneva Multilateral Dialogue

Mentions:WHA79 →World Health Organization →Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus →Geneva →IGWG →India →Global South →Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing →Indonesia →H5N1 →

First Reported In

Update #4 · Ebola triples, response misfires

Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Geneva Multilateral Dialogue· 24 May 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Pandemic Agreement still unsigned after one year

The May 2026 deferral of PABS at WHA79 extended the stalemate from the 1 May resumed 6th IGWG session.

Occurred 1 May 2026

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This Event

WHO defers vaccine-sharing pact to 2027

The mechanism designed to send vaccines to outbreak countries stays unfinished at the moment it would first be called on.

Different Perspectives

European Union / ECDC

ECDC activated an EU Health Task Force, assessed European Bundibugyo import risk as very low, and flagged the recombinant clade Ib/IIb mpox strain in four countries as a surveillance watch item. Both calls reflect the same post-2024 IHR mandate: ECDC acts as a continental early-warning layer rather than waiting for WHO Disease Outbreak News guidance.

Ituri and South Kivu communities / DRC

Residents in South Kivu torched a treatment facility when response teams arrived, a signal of community trust deficit that a no-state-apparatus response cannot overcome before it can begin. In Ituri, four healthcare worker deaths at Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital in four days reflect the population's first line of care bearing the outbreak's worst nosocomial burden without species-specific equipment or treatment.

Uganda / Diana Atwine

Atwine confirmed two imported Bundibugyo cases in Kampala with no onward spread, deployed a mobile laboratory to Kasese on the DRC border, and placed 25 contacts under monitoring before any IHR Temporary Recommendations existed. Uganda's response demonstrates that containment is achievable where a functioning state health authority can compel and protect.

Africa CDC / Jean Kaseya

Kaseya declared a continental emergency 24 hours before the WHO PHEIC and publicly opposed the US entry ban on 19 May, arguing it punishes countries by passport rather than exposure history. The declaration, Africa CDC's second consecutive pre-WHO move after the 2024 mpox sequencing, reflects an AU strategy to lead early-phase responses independently of Geneva.

United States / HHS

Washington imposed a 21-day entry ban on nationals of DRC, Uganda and South Sudan on 18 May, including green-card holders, and began enhanced screening for US citizens at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston from 26 May. The ban predated WHO Temporary Recommendations by four days and covered South Sudan despite zero confirmed cases there.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus / WHO

Tedros declared the PHEIC on 17 May without the IHR Emergency Committee, then watched the committee's 22 May no-travel-restriction advice arrive four days after the US ban it was meant to prevent. A declaration without operational instructions left states parties with the headline of a global emergency but no guidance on screening, trade or deployment.