Pandemic prep concerns hang over WHO meeting

After negotiations on a pandemic treaty stalled, concerns about how the globe deals with the next big viral threat will linger over the World Health Assembly that opened on Monday.

The big picture: Two years of talks about how countries could better cooperate on future pandemics failed to produce a draft treaty in time for the World Health Organization's annual meeting.

• "It's now for this World Health Assembly to decide what that way is — meaning the solution is in your hands," said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, per the Associated Press.
• The WHO could grant treaty negotiators more time, experts told NPR, and Tedros expressed confidence a pact could still be reached.

State of play: Treaty talks were sparked by the inequitable rollout of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments to poorer countries.

• But negotiators were hung up over requirements for countries to quickly share genetic sequence data and pathogen samples, as well as how much vaccine and treatments rich countries would have to share with poorer countries.
• Countries in the next week could also take more immediate steps to improve pandemic preparedness by agreeing to changes to the International Health Regulations, which dictate how countries respond to outbreaks.