Pandemic

Doubling Down: Ensuring a Transformative Pandemic Agreement

Doubling Down Ensuring a Transformative Pandemic Agreement (2)

Humanity cannot afford another deadly and costly pandemic. Today, world leaders have a generational opportunity to produce a strong and meaningful pandemic agreement that ensures the world is better equipped to prevent, prepare for, and respond to emerging pandemic threats.

Pandemic Action Network is hosting two community meetings on the pandemic agreement during INB8 to enable civil society voices to be heard during this critical phase of the negotiations. Join us on Wednesday, Feb. 21 and Thursday, Feb. 22 from 12:45-13:45pm CET / 06:45-07:45am ET. More details are included in the registration form. For those wishing to be in the room on Feb. 21 and Feb 22, the deadline for in-person registration is close of business CET on Monday, Feb. 19.

As the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) process continues toward the May 2024 culmination, more than 80 organizations call on Member States to double down on negotiations and move toward a meaningful, ambitious, equitable, and accountable pandemic agreement. In a letter led by Pandemic Action Network, Member States are urged to ensure the final pandemic agreement text incorporates and reaffirms existing human rights obligations, including the right to the highest attainable standard of health and to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress and its applications. The final text must also:

  • Establish a global system that guarantees end-to-end, timely, affordable, and equitable access to medical countermeasures and other lifesaving tools for all countries
  • Commit to securing additional, long-term, and sustainable financing for pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response (PPR)
  • Strengthen accountability to drive action, including establishing a fully independent monitoring committee
  • Establish clear and enforceable obligations to prevent zoonotic disease outbreaks, spillovers, and spillbacks; address the drivers of pathogen spillover via the One Health approach; and provide the support needed for countries to deliver on these obligations
  • Meaningfully prioritize gender-responsive pandemic PPR to advance equity across this agenda

Leaders must seize this generational opportunity to produce a strong and meaningful agreement that shifts the status quo and redefines health. 

Read the full letter and sign on to show your support.