Pathogen-sharing annex clears a fifth round with contentious elements set aside for later
Negotiators finished a week in Geneva with a plan to streamline the text and consult separately on the hard parts. The treaty cannot open for signature until the annex is adopted.
The fifth meeting of the Intergovernmental Working Group on the WHO Pandemic Agreement ran from 9 to 14 February and ended without a completed annex on pathogen access and benefit sharing [s1]. Member states will resume negotiations next month, WHO said, "as they advance towards the May deadline, when the outcome of their work will be presented to the WHA" [s1].
That is the third consecutive round to end this way, and the calendar is now doing most of the work in this story.
Why May is a hard stop
The World Health Assembly adopted the WHO Pandemic Agreement on 20 May 2025 and, in the same resolution, created the IGWG to draft and negotiate the PABS annex described in Article 12, with the outcome to be submitted to the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly for consideration [s2].
Under Article 31, the agreement opens for signature by member states only after the Assembly adopts the PABS annex — at WHO headquarters in Geneva, and thereafter at United Nations headquarters in New York, on dates the Assembly determines [s2].
The Assembly meets annually. An annex not ready for the May session does not slip a few weeks; it slips to the following year, and with it signature, ratification and entry into force. That dependency is why a technical drafting exercise carries the weight it does.
What the fifth round actually produced
WHO's account is procedural, and the procedure is informative.
IGWG Bureau co-chair Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes of Brazil said countries had "again shown their steadfast commitment to getting the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing annex done," and added: "We now have a clear vision for streamlining the text, while ensuring that the more contentious elements receive the necessary consultation" [s1].
Read that second clause carefully. Streamlining the text and routing contentious elements to separate consultation is what negotiators do when the disagreements are not resolvable in plenary. It is progress on the parts that were never the problem.
Co-chair Matthew Harpur of the United Kingdom was more direct about the remainder: "It is clear that important differences remain, but there is a shared recognition of what is at stake... With time running short, the coming weeks will be critical in bridging the remaining gaps" [s1].
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was confident member states "will reach an agreement on the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing annex in time for the World Health Assembly in May this year" [s1].
Alongside the text negotiations and consensus-building dialogues, member states engaged with stakeholders including representatives from the private sector, academia, laboratories and sequence information databases [s1].
What the annex has to settle
The PABS system is designed to promote equitable access based on public health need by facilitating rapid and timely sharing of pathogen materials and genetic sequence data, and — WHO's phrasing is "on an equal footing" — the rapid, timely, fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from these [s1].
The problem it addresses is structural. In an outbreak, samples and sequences move quickly from the countries where a pathogen emerges to laboratories and manufacturers able to develop tests, treatments and vaccines. The resulting products have historically moved back far more slowly, if at all. PABS is an attempt to make that return flow contractual.
Every hard question in the annex follows from that: what materials enter the system, what obligations attach to receiving them, what benefits are owed in return, in what quantity, on what timeline, and who adjudicates. None of those can be resolved with aspirational language, because the entire purpose of the annex is to make Article 12 operational.
The pattern across three rounds
The fourth IGWG meeting ran 1–5 December 2025 and also ended without a completed annex, after which member states added an unscheduled session for 20–22 January 2026 ahead of the fifth full meeting [s3]. The extra sessions were framed at the time as reflecting shared commitment and urgency [s3].
Two and a half months later, the fifth meeting has closed with the contentious elements still contentious and another round scheduled for next month [s1].
What to watch
Whether the March round produces consolidated text or another set of bracketed options. That distinction — a converging negotiation versus one still mapping positions — is the single best indicator of whether May is achievable.
Whether the substance of the disagreements becomes public. WHO's statements have described tone and commitment rather than the specific points in dispute; positions on scope of covered materials, sequence-information obligations and allocation percentages have historically surfaced through member-state statements and civil society reporting instead.
And whether any contingency emerges for an annex that is close but not finished by May. Nothing in WHO's account suggests one exists.
Sources
- [s1] World Health Organization, "Global commitment on display as countries negotiate key annex to the Pandemic Agreement," 17 February 2026. https://www.who.int/news/item/17-02-2026-global-commitment-on-display-as-countries-negotiate-key-annex-to-the-pandemic-agreement
- [s2] World Health Organization, "Pandemic prevention, preparedness and response agreement: Questions and answers," accessed 18 February 2026. https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/pandemic-prevention--preparedness-and-response-accord
- [s3] World Health Organization, "Countries to reconvene sooner to accelerate progress on WHO Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing system negotiations," 5 December 2025. https://www.who.int/news/item/05-12-2025-countries-to-reconvene-sooner-to-accelerate-progress-on-who-pathogen-access-and-benefit-sharing-system-negotiations
Sources
- Global commitment on display as countries negotiate key annex to the Pandemic Agreement — World Health Organization , February 17, 2026
- Pandemic prevention, preparedness and response agreement (Questions and answers) — World Health Organization , February 18, 2026
- Countries to reconvene sooner to accelerate progress on WHO Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing system negotiations — World Health Organization , December 5, 2025
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