Four years ago, our lives were upended by the Covid-19 pandemic. Countries locked down, millions became ill, millions died. And when the vaccine finally arrived, it was not fairly distributed. Rich countries bought too many, poor countries waited, with nothing.
“What we saw during the Covid-19 pandemic was collapse. Basically, a complete failure of international cooperation,” says Suerie Moon of Geneva Graduate Institute’s Global Health Centre.
Surely we can do better? Countries are gathering in Geneva to try to hammer out a pandemic treaty. Do they have the vision? And the courage?
“There’s been so much lip service paid to equity, but when it actually comes to nailing down what that means, and how to avoid a repeat, it seems like governments are struggling,” says Kerry Cullinan, deputy editor of Health Policy Watch.
What about the vaccine manufacturers? Are they ready to share?
Thomas Cueni former head of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers told us in 2023: “I’ve always been of the view that no treaty is better than a bad treaty. Have a good treaty, I think it would be great.”
David Reddy, the new director-general of IFPMA, adds that they “remain committed to providing the expertise and know-how of our companies to global efforts to prepare for and respond to future pandemics.”
Are we going to be better equipped for the next pandemic?
“I think it would be an insult to the seven million people plus who died during the pandemic for there not to be a historic agreement,” says Cullinan.
Join host Imogen Foulkes on our Inside Geneva podcast to learn more about this treaty.
This text was updated on May 16, 2024, to mention that Thomas Cueni is now the former head of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers. The interview mentioned in the podcast was recorded in 2023.
Please listen and subscribe to our science podcast -- the Swiss Connection.
Four years ago, our lives were upended by the Covid-19 pandemic. Countries locked down, millions became ill, millions died. And when the vaccine finally arrived, it was not fairly distributed. Rich countries bought too many, poor countries waited, with nothing.
“What we saw during the Covid-19 pandemic was collapse. Basically, a complete failure of international cooperation,” says Suerie Moon of Geneva Graduate Institute’s Global Health Centre.
Surely we can do better? Countries are gathering in Geneva to try to hammer out a pandemic treaty. Do they have the vision? And the courage?
“There’s been so much lip service paid to equity, but when it actually comes to nailing down what that means, and how to avoid a repeat, it seems like governments are struggling,” says Kerry Cullinan, deputy editor of Health Policy Watch.
What about the vaccine manufacturers? Are they ready to share?
Thomas Cueni former head of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers told us in 2023: “I’ve always been of the view that no treaty is better than a bad treaty. Have a good treaty, I think it would be great.”
David Reddy, the new director-general of IFPMA, adds that they “remain committed to providing the expertise and know-how of our companies to global efforts to prepare for and respond to future pandemics.”
Are we going to be better equipped for the next pandemic?
“I think it would be an insult to the seven million people plus who died during the pandemic for there not to be a historic agreement,” says Cullinan.
Join host Imogen Foulkes on our Inside Geneva podcast to learn more about this treaty.
This text was updated on May 16, 2024, to mention that Thomas Cueni is now the former head of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers. The interview mentioned in the podcast was recorded in 2023.
Please listen and subscribe to our science podcast -- the Swiss Connection.
This is Inside Geneva. I'm your host, imogen Foulkes, and this is a production from Swissinfo, the international public media company of Switzerland.
Speaker 1:
In today's program, we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic, a collapse, basically a complete failure of international cooperation.
Speaker 3:
We are still suffering the consequences of COVID. Our economies in Africa are shattered, countries are defaulting on their debt and unemployment has risen. My own country is still paying for the COVID vaccines that we had to buy at a premium. Our headlines for you today World leaders call for an international treaty to deal with future pandemics.
Speaker 4:
I've always been of the view and in my youth I was a multilateral diplomat no treaty is better than a bad treaty. Have a good treaty. I think it would be great.
Speaker 3:
It would be an insult to the seven million people plus who have died during the pandemic for there not to be an historic agreement.
Speaker 2:
Hello and welcome again to Inside Geneva. I'm Imogen Fowkes, and in today's programme we're going to have a look ahead to the upcoming World Health Assembly that happens in Geneva later this week. And ahead of that assembly, the clock is ticking here with feverish negotiations underway to try and agree a pandemic treaty. That's in the hope of us all coping better with a pandemic like the coronavirus than we did a few short years ago. But is the world brave enough? Is it united enough to agree something like that? I'll be talking to Kerry Cullinan of Health Policy Watch. Kerry, it's good to have you here.
Speaker 3:
Thanks for imagining.
Speaker 2:
Good to be here Now. You've been following the negotiations closely, so I'll be very interested to hear your take on on what's been agreed or, more importantly, maybe, what's not been agreed, and we'll be hearing from a public health expert and from the all-important pharma industry, who also have a voice in these negotiations. But first a reminder of how we got here.
Speaker 4:
A new Chinese coronavirus, a cousin of the SARS virus, has the international community on alert.
Speaker 1:
Carefully, doctors in Wuhan put on their suits and masks. The sickness that started in their city has built in strength and seeped out, sending infection rates in China rocketing 50%.
Speaker 2:
Over 16,000 new coronavirus cases have been diagnosed in France.
Speaker 4:
I ask tonight to stay at home as much as possible.
Speaker 1:
Dear fellow citizens, the coronavirus is changing the life of our country dramatically.
Speaker 4:
The current lockdown restrictions in England will remain in place until at least the 8th of March.
Speaker 2:
If only there were enough jabs available for everyone. Instead, the country that's making vaccines for the rest of the world is faced with a massive shortage.
Speaker 4:
Now that some countries have started to roll out the coronavirus vaccine, you might be asking yourself when will I be able to get one If you live in Africa? The answer for the moment is not yet.
Speaker 2:
Kerry. In some ways all of that feels like ages and ages ago. But even now, listening to those morning headlines and then the lockdowns and so on, I am thinking, oh, I don't want to go back there again. I don't think anybody on the planet wants to go back there again. Do you think our governments are determined to come up with a deal to help us not go back there again?
Speaker 3:
It's hard to know there's been so much lip service to equity but when it actually comes down to nailing down what that means and how to avoid the repeat, it seems like governments are struggling. The repeat it seems like governments are struggling and for me the main thing is to try to move some of the locus of power from individual countries to the WHO so that they can get some of the pandemic products and distribute them is key, and there is a proposal in the skeleton of this pandemic agreement that says 20% of what is produced should go to the WHO. So if we can get that, it'll be amazing.
Speaker 2:
That would be great, and I know I've heard myself in Geneva. The World Health Organization really wants countries to give it this power, but we're also living in a political climate where sovereignty, sovereignty, sovereignty seems to be king, and these multilateral institutions are. They're not as popular as they used to be, perhaps we could say. We also know that international negotiations are traditionally very difficult to complete, that getting a treaty takes years and years, and years. It's a hugely ambitious target to get this done by May 24. I was talking to someone you and I know very well and that is Suri Moon of the Geneva Graduate Institute's Global Health Centre, and she too is concerned that maybe the sense of urgency has drifted away from when we were in the middle of that very challenging pandemic. Let's have a listen to what she has to say.
Speaker 1:
I think we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic a collapse, basically a complete failure of international cooperation. And it might sound obvious, but I think it's worth repeating that you cannot prevent and stop pandemics without international cooperation. And it's not because we think international cooperation is the nice thing to do or the charitable thing to do. It's that you really need countries to work together to share information, to share technology, to share goods, to help each other out if we're going to get outbreaks under control and stop them from becoming pandemics.
Speaker 1:
And what we saw in COVID-19 was people panicked, they looked inwards, they closed their borders, they stopped trade, they hoarded vaccines and masks and diagnostics and you, you know, you name it. So it was very clear that the international rules we already had on the table at that time were not strong enough, and there certainly were also big gaps in those international rules. They did not address the question of vaccines at all, for example, which became one of the most politically difficult and painful, I think, episodes in the pandemic. So yeah, both because we want to be effective in controlling pandemics and we want to be more equitable in how we address future pandemics, we absolutely need new international rules.
Speaker 2:
Well, I think you made that very clear Lots of failures. We all had to endure the consequences of those failures in terms of having to stay at home, Schools were closed. We are days away now from the World Health Assembly. How much do you think the governments who kind of made those mistakes or let them happen how much have they learned? How much willingness is there to get together and get a nice multilateral global health treaty onto the books?
Speaker 1:
I do think the political urgency and the willingness of political leaders to think differently has almost completely evaporated, and that has made it difficult to reach agreement. That said, if we don't make it across the finish line now for this world health assembly in 2024, it's just going to get harder and and I think many negotiators fully understand this they know that the window is closing and, in my view, it will close at the end of may. So it doesn't mean that everything has to be settled every, every last T crossed and I dotted, but it does mean we need the meaningful outlines, the contours of a binding agreement to be accepted and endorsed by the end of May. Otherwise, I think we can have talks that drag on for years and years, and years and could end up yielding nothing until, of course, the next crisis happens, and that's what we've seen time and time again. I hope we don't need another near pandemic to focus minds and get us across the finish line.
Speaker 2:
Kerry, it's disappointing to me to hear Suri say the political will has almost evaporated, when you think what we were experiencing just four years ago.
Speaker 3:
I think that we're dealing with politicians who are on election cycles, so every four or five years they're trying to win elections, and so that's what they focus on. Certainly, where I sit in South Africa, we are still suffering the consequences of COVID. Our economies in Africa are shattered, countries are defaulting on their debt and unemployment has risen. My own country is still paying for the COVID vaccines that we had to buy at a premium. So I don't think Africa has forgotten by any means, but we are being forgotten, I think, and that's the painful thing.
Speaker 2:
Are you sensing a tension now between the global south and the north? We heard so much about equity and access to vaccines, but I'm starting to wonder if these are just fine words, because when we get to the nitty gritty of the agreement, we don't seem to be getting anywhere.
Speaker 3:
It is really disappointing because equity was the whole point, the whole motivation for getting such a pandemic agreement. But getting it across the Finnish land seems to be extraordinarily difficult, with everybody stuck representing their own interests or the interests of the dominant industries in their countries. So that is. It is tough. I mean I also like Surya Moon. I hope, I have a little bit of hope that we are going to get across the finish line. But maybe it's just the optimist for me, I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:
You mentioned the pharmaceutical industry. I did actually talk to Thomas Cooney, who's the head of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers. You know him, I know him a reasonable man but obviously he represents his industry and he is always very keen to move away from the criticism of big pharma being greedy, etc. He says. He told me that the pharmaceutical industry is not really getting the credit it deserves for the work it did developing the vaccine so quickly.
Speaker 4:
I think it's fairly straightforward when you look at what worked well during the pandemic it's innovation, delivering, it was access to pathogens and it was the partnership. Listening to some people, occasionally you could be easily deceived and think that all these vaccines, tests and treatments, they fell from heaven or came out of WHO labs. Not quite. All the vaccines, treatments and tests by and large came out from private manufacturers. All of them basically applied tiered pricing. We saw across the board treatments or vaccines much cheaper in low-income countries, developing countries, than in our parts of the world and I personally hope that actually this will be a segue to the future, that actually beyond the pandemic, we'll see progress and access with this notion of if you want to reach patients, you need to offer your drugs, your treatments, at significantly low price in the low-income countries.
Speaker 2:
One of the things that many people have said to me needs to be stopped is the way that wealthy countries bought up huge stockpiles of vaccines. Now some of those countries are actually having to destroy those doses and poorer countries really came short. What could go into a pandemic treaty to stop that happening?
Speaker 4:
For me, you will never be able to fully do away with country presidents, prime ministers at least in democratic societies, they swear no of allegiance to protect their citizens first. Therefore, I'm really of the view that we need to do much better. Medical need should prevail, but when you look at actually the early discussions in terms of equitable allocation 1% of the global population, front-line healthcare workers, 8% of the global population were above 65, the most exposed, most vulnerable I think it should be possible to commit to a social contract that in the next pandemic, up front part of available production goes straight for these vulnerable, most exposed. I think that's more realistic than expecting a totally egalitarian global allocation. That's a nice vision, but likelihood is that there will always be some shortages, because you will never have a pandemic where you will have 10 billion doses lying around.
Speaker 2:
Do you think we need a pandemic treaty?
Speaker 4:
I've always been of the view and in my youth I was a multilateral diplomat no treaty is better than a bad treaty. Have a good treaty. I think it would be great.
Speaker 2:
Okay, so what does a good treaty look like?
Speaker 4:
There are elements which are actually on the table. I think we can learn from the current pandemic regulatory collaboration, strengthening regulatory systems, in particular in Africa, where we do not yet have an FDA or European Medicines Agency. I do believe that preparedness is absolutely vital. For example, we saw challenges in terms of doing clinical trials in many developing countries. Therefore, strengthening clinical trials systems, infrastructure important. And thirdly, we also saw the problem once you had actually more than enough vaccines. The country readiness was not there. If you do not make real progress, we may again be confronted with we have the vaccines, the treatments, but the infrastructure is not there, the nurses are not there.
Speaker 2:
Kerry, how do you view that, what Thomas Cooney said there, from South Africa or Africa's perspective? There are some things he said which sound very sensible to me, but I wonder how the pharmaceutical industry after, as you said, the huge debts that African countries have for having to buy those vaccines, how the industry is perceived there.
Speaker 3:
Well, maybe just to start by saying he is correct that we are not dealing with the arms manufacturers or petrochemical industry. We are dealing with an industry that makes medicines that make people's lives better. So certainly I think that there are people who crudely characterize Big Pharma as the enemy. We have to work with Big Pharma. Everyone has to work together, otherwise we are going to be stuck in the next pandemic. So I do agree that some of the bad views people have towards Big Pharma are just short-sighted. But there are a couple of things that are not quite I would not really agree with. First, he said that in developing countries the vaccines were sold cheaper. I think they were sold to big organizations like Gavi to distribute cheaper. But there was an access to information, legal strategy that was brought against the South African government to force them to disclose all their dealings with the drug companies, and we found that we were paying more for the Pfizer vaccine than they charged European countries.
Speaker 2:
So that's just shocking. Yeah, who do you? I mean, you've been following these negotiations much more closely than I have, and we're going to hear from Suri Moon again in a minute about what she sees as the sticking points. But I'm wondering your perception is it member states who are balking.
Speaker 3:
Is it the influence of industry? Is it both? Do you see some key obstacles in the room? Important for them, but I do think that the IFPMA, for example they have bought into the idea that the WHO gets around 20% of whatever future pandemic products are produced. Of course, the dispute is who's going to pay. The idea is that half of it would be a donation and the other half would be sold at cost, but there have been some questions from the pharmaceutical industry about covering that, but they have come to the party on that and I think that that's really commendable. So I think we need to try and find ways to build on that and the idea is that all the Nuts and bolts of this pandemic agreement are going to still be worked out over the next two years.
Speaker 2:
We're just wanting the sticking points were, and also her fear that doing all the finer, tricky details is going to be delayed could be a problem.
Speaker 1:
What I'm concerned about is that the revised international health regulations the regulations that are supposed to in fact mandate more immediate, more open, more widespread sharing of such information I think has bumped up against sovereignty. I think there are limits to how much governments are willing to commit actually to fully, openly, widely, publicly and immediately share information, especially when that information is sensitive. There are certainly some measures that move us in the right direction. That would, for example, mandate WHO to share information that it received from a government more widely with every other government. There is a recognition that open information sharing is really critical to understanding and stopping outbreaks when and where they occur, but what we've seen is still quite a bit of hesitance to commit to that.
Speaker 1:
There is another issue that's related to that, this issue of pathogen access and benefit sharing.
Speaker 1:
To what extent will governments share samples of pathogens when they're detected, share data on pathogens when they identify them openly with the scientific community, and this has been probably the most important sticking point actually in the negotiations.
Speaker 1:
A number of governments are very hesitant to do that if they feel that those samples or that data will be used to develop drugs and vaccines that they will then not be able to access, and so a goal of the talks from day one has been can we agree on some kind of bargain that would make everybody better off, meaning all countries agree to share samples and data and all countries agree to share benefits, including the technology needed for drugs and vaccines, in exchange? That political bargain, which might seem obvious in some ways, has been elusive. Governments have not managed to agree to what might seem like a pretty fundamental and, in some ways, a common-sense bargain that would make everybody better off, and that issue has actually been kicked down the road. The current proposal is for governments to spend another two years working out the specifics of that particular deal. In some ways, one of the most important issues has been kicked on the road.
Speaker 2:
So, kerry, I'm beginning to realise that this whole debate well like all diplomatic treaty negotiations becomes far more complicated than you first imagined. So do you agree with Suri there? Information sharing is a key obstacle. She said. It seems obvious, but actually it's the key sticking point.
Speaker 3:
I think the sharing of information goes further than that. I would agree with her. What people want civil society certainly have wanted is that there is clarity about the deals that individual companies do with pharmaceutical companies. That's like point number one, so that, for example, we in South Africa know how much Belgium is spending or Switzerland is spending on the same products. So that it gives you leverage in your own negotiations. But obviously that is what pharmaceutical companies want to keep quiet.
Speaker 3:
The other thing that people want publicly known, or more public access to, is when a government has invested in the research and development of a vaccine or a drug they want to have.
Speaker 3:
Well, the taxpayers of those countries who are involved in the NGOs say we should, as citizens paying tax, know where that money is going, how those companies are spending it, and also then have a say in getting access to the products that are developed with our taxpayers' money. So I think those two are really important. But then, coming to the pathogen access and benefit sharing system, my sense is you can't sort out the details now. I think the delay is correct. What we want is an agreement in principle that the WHO will be in charge of this big kind of laboratory of information and people will pay. If you're a pharmaceutical company, the idea is that you pay an annual subscription fee because you're going to be profiting from that. That subscription fee can go into developing countries to help them build their health systems to prepare better for pandemics. But if they're going to share their information about whether it be MPOCs or Ebola or whatever disease you know pathogen X that comes along, that there is some derived benefit for them.
Speaker 2:
So this is what Suri was hinting at that if you're a least developed or underdeveloped country and something emerges on your territory, you'll share the pathogen if you are going to be guaranteed access to the treatment, which sounds obvious to me. But we come down again to the root of it again is that access to medicine in any form is just not equitable.
Speaker 3:
That's absolutely not. I mean, the Democratic Republic of Congo has had impacts, outbreaks for many, many years. Not one vaccine vaccine has gone there. And yet I was in New York just happened to be in New York when they made the mpox vaccines available to people who felt that they'd been exposed, and I spoke to some of the people who were going for the vaccines and really their risk was quite small. They were just worried and middle class and had access to the vaccine. So why not? And it really it made my blood boil knowing that kids in the DRC that are coming into contact with infected animals have never, ever, ever, had access to vaccines. So, yes, it does seem like some lives are worth more than others and for us sitting in Africa, being always the ones whose lives are worth less, apparently, it's pretty infuriating.
Speaker 2:
How seized are the diplomats doing the deals in Geneva of this kind of sense of inequity, this anger? Do you think the COVID-19 pandemic has made them more conscious of this?
Speaker 3:
Well, interestingly enough, the US, which always prefers bilaterals, has now doubled the countries that it's working in to help with pandemic preparedness. So they have just announced a new plan a month or so ago, and whereas at the moment they're helping 50 countries, their plan is to help 100. So I think that they are aware, but they also want derived benefits for themselves, not necessarily a multilateral agreement, which is so complicated they are complicated.
Speaker 2:
I was, I was thinking when I started researching this that when I really first started as a correspondent in geneva was just when the framework treaty on tobacco control came out, and this had been years in the making and in the negotiating and the lobbying from the industry and it was a huge, historic, euphoric moment and it has been a historic treaty. I'm going to ask you first, and then we can hear from from Suri again Do you think we're going to have a historic moment in Geneva for this, or is it going to be more of a? We've got a framework, an outline.
Speaker 3:
I think it would be an insult to the 7 million people plus who have died during the pandemic for there not to be an historic agreement. So I'm really hoping that all the negotiators and all their principals understand that this is incredibly important.
Speaker 2:
Well, I couldn't put it better myself, but I did ask Suri Moon of Geneva Graduate Institute's Global Health Centre. She's also been following these negotiations very closely, and here is what she thinks.
Speaker 1:
It's potentially a historic moment. I hope it will be a historic moment, a historic moment where we actually see a meaningful new set of international rules that would help us deal with future pandemics being agreed by countries. From the perspective of where we are today, it's very unclear whether we will actually cross the finish line. And if we do cross the finish line, yeah, will those rules make a difference? Lots of uncertainty actually, from even just a few weeks out, and we're all kind of holding our breath and hoping the diplomats manage to reach consensus on something meaningful.
Speaker 2:
How do you think the World Health Organization has come out of this? Has been leading or trying to encourage countries towards this agreement?
Speaker 1:
Yes, I think WHO has been very clear in asking its member states for this agreement. Very clear in asking its member states for this agreement. It's been asking its government for the legal tools that it needs to do its job, and I think they're right. I think they're right to ask governments to equip them with what they need to protect the world against pandemics. It is really in the hands of governments and I think if everything crashes and burns and fails and there's no political agreement, there's nothing coming out of the World Health Assembly.
Speaker 1:
Probably many people will blame WHO, but it's actually in the hands of government.
Speaker 1:
It's really up to governments to say do we want to agree and bind ourselves and bind each other to a set of rules that will protect all of us and allow the organization that we have asked to take the lead on that, which is the World Health Organization, to allow them to do their job? Do we commit, for example, as governments, to share information openly and quickly with WHO and allow WHO to share that information? Do we allow WHO to facilitate, for example, the transfer of technology? These are the kinds of things that make perfect sense, but governments have so far been quite hesitant to agree. So I think there will probably be a lot of finger pointing if indeed talks fail, and certainly WHO will be subject to much of that finger pointing. But ultimately it's not in the control of WHO what governments decide to do.
Speaker 1:
But ultimately it's not in the control of WHO what governments decide to do. Governments have to come to the table and strike some of those hard compromises and make the commitments that we need at the international level so that every country at home is better protected. Whether leaders have the foresight and the courage and the leadership to do that, we will find out by the end of May.
Speaker 2:
I think it's quite interesting, kerry, she's basically put her finger on the Achilles heel of all the UN's multilateral organizations that if they want to get something done for the good of all of us on the whole planet, they're dependent on the member states. Can I ask you how the WHO is viewed in Africa, because it was quite easy to find the public ready to blame the WHO throughout the pandemic in the Global North.
Speaker 3:
I think most people have a dim awareness of the WHO. You know, people just want a health system that works, and whoever delivers that or helps with that first prize, Most people in the continent struggle to get access to very basic health system. So you know, the WHO sure we see it from time to time has a supportive role for our governments. But the actual day-to-day involvement, I think most people have no idea. Day-to-day involvement, I think most people have no idea.
Speaker 3:
The one thing that did happen in COVID was because I think Africa felt like we were so marginalized and, you know, just not cut into any of the deals that Africa's CDC, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, became the voice of the continent. My own president, Cyril Ramaphosa, became the advocate for getting vaccines internationally for the continent, and I think that there has been continental unity, which has been really important. And I think that that is playing into the negotiations too, because for once, African countries are just saying we don't need your charity, we actually need to be a proper grown-up partner sitting at the table decisions alongside you, and I think it's a different approach and attitude. And I think that that has also possibly taken the wealthier countries by surprise, because they don't just have an acquiescent continent with a begging bowl out.
Speaker 2:
That's a very interesting point and one that I hope is really not lost on the diplomats from Europe, from North America, negotiating, also negotiating, this treaty. One final question, and then we're going to have to wrap up. If we end up which some fear with a treaty which is all voluntary and looks nice at first reading but doesn't commit to much, what kind of signal do you think that will send the countries in Africa, for example, that were last on the list during the Covid pandemic?
Speaker 3:
I mean it's a tough one because then it'll just be a wish list rather than an implementation list. And I do see that there has been an analysis done of one of the drafts a couple of weeks ago where they said there were only five percent of the articles were obligatory and the rest were voluntary. So it doesn't look great and I don't know whether, once you've adopted that, whether you can tighten up the language in the two years that they're going to negotiate the nuts and bolts. So yeah, it's a tricky one.
Speaker 2:
That's a good note to end on. Multilateral negotiations are indeed tricky. Well, kerry and I wish the negotiators in Geneva every success, because I don't know how to communicate it to you more strongly no one wants to go back to the spring of 2020 and the schools closed and everything closed and everybody wondering what was going to happen. My thanks to Kerry Cullinan, to Suri Moon and Thomas Cooney. That's it for this week's edition of Inside Geneva.
Speaker 2:
And as we put the final touches on this podcast, the WHO's Director General, dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, was begging member states to come to agreement on that pandemic treaty. It's possible, but maybe not likely, that by the time you listen to this, some kind of agreement will have been reached. But time is running out. It's possible the World Health Assembly will begin without anything definite on paper, or perhaps only a list of vague voluntary proposals, or perhaps, as Suri Moon warned, the whole issue will be kicked down the road Until the next pandemic let's hope not Geneva at swissinfoch, and subscribe to us and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Check out our previous episodes how the International Red Cross unites prisoners of war with their families, or why survivors of human rights violations turn to the UN in Geneva for justice. I'm Imogen Folks. Thanks again for listening.
