GENEVA: An extra week of negotiations to complete an international agreement on handling future pandemics kicked off in Geneva on Monday, with sharp divisions holding up an accord.
Wealthy countries and developing nations are at loggerheads in the talks at the World Health Organization over how the pandemic treaty, adopted last year, will work in practice. The agreement´s Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) system deals with sharing access to pathogens with pandemic potential, then sharing benefits derived from them such as vaccines, tests and treatments. “The world cannot afford to lose this opportunity and risk being unprepared for the next pandemic,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the start of the talks.
