Comments on Article 12: Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) of the REVISED Draft of the negotiating text of the WHO Pandemic Agreement, 13th March 2024

Abstract

In this document, we set our reflections on the current draft text (dated 13 March 2024) of the Pandemic Agreement currently being negotiated at the World Health Organization (WHO). Our comments mostly focus on Article 12 of the draft text which contains provisions on pathogen access and benefit-sharing. Some of our reflections are in the form of questions, but this is not to suggest that there are easy answers (or any answers at all) to these questions. The pathogen access and benefit-sharing (PABS) system set out in the draft Article 12 is supposed to (1.) ensure rapid access to pathogen samples and associated genetic sequence data (GSD), and (2.) ensure fair and equitable distribution of vaccines, diagnostics and treatments in the event of a pandemic. We point readers to our previous publications where we analyse the various problems of using an access and benefit-sharing (ABS) mechanism in the public health space, and have advocated for the above public health issues to be addressed separately. Linking these two public health issues using ABS creates more problems than it solves and we are concerned that it will not result in anything resembling fair or equitable for low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Keywords: ABS; Pandemic Treaty; World Health Organization; pathogens; PABS; CBD; Nagoya Protocol; Specialized International Instrument