GENEVA (AFP)

An extra week of negotiations to complete the crucial missing piece of an international agreement on handling future pandemics kicks off Monday at the WHO.

Member nations in the World Health Organisation need to come to a consensus over how the pandemic treaty, adopted last year, will work in practice.

The agreement's Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) system deals with sharing access to pathogens with pandemic potential, then sharing the benefits derived from them: vaccines, tests, and treatments.

"[Some countries] are voicing their mistrust, fearing they will share their viruses without any guarantees of equitable access to vaccines in the event of a crisis," WHO chief scientist Sylvie Briand told AFP.

Meanwhile other countries are asking whether the pharmaceutical industry would have the capacity and motivation to contribute to a global pandemic agreement "without a guarantee of return on investment", she said.

Another challenge, she said, was "to integrate the sharing of genetic data, now as crucial as that of physical viruses for developing vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics".

In May 2025, WHO member states adopted a landmark pandemic agreement on tackling future health crises, after more than three years of negotiations sparked by the shock of Covid-19.

The accord aims to prevent future pandemics from the disjointed responses and international disarray that surrounded the coronavirus crisis, by improving global coordination, surveillance, and access to vaccines.

PABS, the heartbeat of the treaty, was left on the side in order to get the bulk of the deal over the line. Countries have been given one final week, through Friday, to negotiate PABS, with an eye on getting it approved during the World Health Assembly of WHO member states, which opens on May 18.

PABS is considered crucial by developing states, particularly in Africa, where many countries felt cut adrift in the scramble for Covid-19 vaccines.

However, there are nuances between their positions. Some emerging economies like South Africa want technology transfers, while others are focusing primarily on access to healthcare products.

The treaty already says participating pharmaceutical companies should make available 20 percent of their real-time production of vaccines, tests, and treatments to the WHO for redistribution -- with at least half as a donation and the rest "at affordable prices".

However, the details remain to be defined in the PABS annex, as do the terms of access to health data and tools outside pandemics.

NGOs and developing countries want to impose mandatory rules for laboratories to ensure developing countries receive vaccines.

Developing countries also want a user registration and tracking system for the PABS database, while developed countries, "advocate for maintaining anonymous access", said K. M. Gopakumar, senior researcher with the Third World Network.

Anonymous access would make it "impossible" to track who is using pathogen information, what for, and whether they are sharing the derived benefits, 100 non-governmental organisations including Oxfam said in a joint letter to the WHO.