A last ditch effort of WHO member states to finish negotiations on a pandemic accord has failed to yield agreement ahead of next week’s World Health Assembly (WHA) – with key articles in the draft text still unresolved including the formula for global sharing of vaccines and medicines during international health emergencies. And with the agreement, the WHO sought to gain the ability to “suspend all civil liberties”, should it arbitrarily decide there’s a “public health emergency”.

As of yesterday evening, member states of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Board, assembled in Geneva, had stopped negotiating over the draft text, and were instead talking about the way forward. And on that, as well, there was no accord.

According to reports, member states were debating over recommendations to try to conclude the accord in parallel talks during next week’s WHA; to extend the negotiations by another six months; or even by a year.