Last chance for pandemic agreement talks

Countries return to the negotiating table on Monday for one last push on concluding a pandemic agreement, now in slimmed-down form with some of the thorniest aspects stripped out and shelved.

Two years of talks towards sealing a landmark accord on prevention, preparedness and response hit the deadline last month with nothing agreed in terms of concrete wording. The next deadline is the May 27 start of the World Health Organization's annual assembly of member states.

The 194 countries in the WHO are coming back to its Geneva headquarters for a do-or-die round of negotiations from Monday to May 10, to narrow their disagreements on how to best share resources needed to fight off the next pandemic.

"The next pandemic is not a matter of if, but when. If a new pandemic began tomorrow, we would face many of the same problems we faced with Covid-19," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on Wednesday.

"The key issue now is whether we will learn the painful lessons the pandemic has taught us."

 Streamlined new draft 

In December 2021, the raw sting of Covid-19 — which shredded economies, crippled health systems and killed millions — motivated countries' desire for a binding framework of commitments aimed at stopping another such disaster.

Despite broad agreement on what they want those commitments to achieve, big gaps remain between countries on how to go about it.

What was meant to be the ninth and final round of talks last month saw a 29-page draft swell to more than 100 as countries inserted proposed amendments.

Taking the situation into account, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) conducting the talks, issued a streamlined, 23-page version on April 16, with the word count...