WHO members close to accord on tackling future pandemics, sources say
Members of the World Health Organization are close to a deal on a treaty to prepare for future pandemics, sources involved in the talks told Reuters on Saturday, with a WHO spokesperson saying discussions had been paused until Tuesday.
The pact, which has been arduously negotiated for three years and which would be legally binding, is intended to shore up the world’s defences against new pathogens after the COVID-19 pandemic killed millions of people in 2020-22.
The negotiations have been vexed throughout by allegations from right-wing commentators, including in the U.S. but also Britain and Australia, that they could undermine national sovereignty by giving too much power to a U.N. agency.
