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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 29, 2024
Contact: HHS Press Office

202-690-6343
media@hhs.gov


FACTSHEET: JOINT UPDATE BY THE DEPARTMENT OF STATE AND THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
AND HUMAN SERVICES ON NEGOTIATIONS TOWARD A PANDEMIC ACCORD

What is the Pandemic Accord?

In December 2021, World Health Organization (WHO) Member States decided at a
Special Session of the World Health Assembly to establish an intergovernmental
negotiating body (INB), representing all regions of the world, to draft and
negotiate a WHO convention, agreement, or other international instrument on
pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response. More information about the INB
process can be found here , external link .

Why is the United States participating in these negotiations?

Pandemic preparedness was a day one priority for the Biden-Harris Administration
and the United States remains committed to concluding an ambitious Pandemic
Accord and amended International Health Regulations by the May 2024 deadline.
For more than two decades, the United States has been the largest contributor to
efforts to improve public health and other medical capabilities globally,
because infectious disease outbreaks can occur anywhere and these capabilities
are critical to lowering the risk that an outbreak can become a pandemic and
affect all of us. U.S. national security and prosperity depends on all countries
being prepared to prevent biological events when possible and to rapidly detect
and respond to emerging infectious disease threats when they occur.
Unfortunately, that’s not currently the case.

Detecting infectious disease threats quickly, and sharing that information
widely, is critical to limiting global transmission, and to rapidly developing
necessary diagnostics, vaccines, treatments, personal protective equipment
(PPE), and other countermeasures to mitigate adverse health effects. Once
available, facilitating equitable domestic and global access to medical
countermeasures is the best way to minimize global morbidity and mortality, as
well as reduce the economic and other disruptions that we have experienced in
previous pandemics. Collectively, these actions will make the United States, and
the world, safer from the risk posed by the spread of harmful pathogens.

The United States is seeking the following key outcomes in the negotiations:

 1. Enhance the capacity of countries around the world to prevent, prepare for,
    and respond to pandemic emergencies and provide clear, credible, consistent
    information to their citizens.
 2. Ensure that all countries share data and laboratory samples from emerging
    outbreaks quickly, safely, and transparently to facilitate response efforts
    and inform public health decision making regarding effective disease control
    measures, including the rapid creation of safe and effective vaccines,
    diagnostic tests, and treatments.
 3. Support more equitable and timely access to, and delivery of, vaccines,
    diagnostic tests, treatments, and other mitigation measures to quickly
    contain outbreaks, reduce illness and death, and minimize impacts on the
    economic and national security of people around the world.

What actions does the United States support in the Pandemic Accord, in order to
ensure the world can respond more effectively in the next pandemic?

The negotiations are ongoing, and WHO Member States, including the United
States, have not yet agreed on the language in a final agreement. However, the
United States has brought solutions to the table in these negotiations,
including:

 * Support for an access and benefits sharing system that pairs strong
   commitments to share information, pathogen samples, and genetic sequence data
   before and during a pandemic and contractual commitments from manufacturers
   participating in the system to set aside a dedicated percentage of production
   for equitable distribution during pandemics.
 * Support for a stronger systems of voluntary technology transfer, as well as
   new voluntary schemes to promote and facilitate sustainable manufacturing,
   while protecting incentives for innovation, which proved so critical during
   the COVID-19 pandemic. Forced or coercive transfer of technology and know-how
   is ineffective and impractical.
 * Support for sharing the outputs from publicly funded research, especially
   during emergencies, and indeed the United States already requires sharing of
   publications from U.S. government funded research.
 * Support for strengthening and expanding research capacities for addressing
   pathogens with pandemic potential, in accordance with appropriate biosafety
   and biosecurity measures, and taking steps that will enable both more rapid
   and higher quality research during responses that provide critical evidence
   to inform decision making.
 * Support the development of a coordination mechanism that would promote
   harmonization and coordination for financing prevention, preparedness, and
   response as the means of aligning existing funding mechanisms with the Accord
   and amended International Health Regulations, while underscoring that the
   coordination mechanism will operate across a variety of financing sources.
   The United States also supports utilizing surge financing commitments in the
   early stages of a pandemic (see more on U.S. actions to support surge
   financing here).
 * Continued commitment to work with other countries through the World Trade
   Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization to address
   issues related to intellectual property. Intellectual property is a critical
   cornerstone of innovation and provides a strong incentive for medical
   countermeasures development, especially in pandemics.

What is the United States doing to expand access to medicines for people living
around the world?

Like every nation’s leaders, the Biden-Harris Administration’s most fundamental
responsibility is to protect the American people. To do that, we must secure the
United States against the next pandemic by working with other countries to help
detect threats as soon as they emerge, contain those threats at their source,
and respond quickly to mitigate the impact of future biological incidents on the
global and U.S. healthcare, educational and economic systems.

In a future pandemic, we will ensure that all Americans have access to the
vaccines, tests and treatments they need. Additionally, by working to make
vaccines and treatments available as early as possible in the next pandemic for
the highest risk populations, wherever they are in the world, we can save lives
and reduce the risk of new variants emerging elsewhere that can threaten
American lives.

We are taking steps to develop a more efficient and predictable process for
financing global vaccines in the next pandemic, which will mean:

 * Leveraging pre-negotiated purchasing agreements to enable a more rapid start
   to donations of vaccines and other countermeasures when needed;
 * Negotiating more favorable pricing before and during the next pandemic; and
 * Benefitting American companies -- by more clearly communicating demand for
   their products, companies will have more reliable order volume at the
   beginning of a pandemic emergency as well as access to new markets.

The United States is leveraging its purchasing power to facilitate rapid
production, distribution and administration of vaccines for Americans, as well
as those living around the world, in order to limit the spread of future
pandemic pathogens, and mitigate their impact, resulting in lower risk to
Americans and the world in the next pandemic.

The most effective and sustainable way to increase manufacturing capacity for
vaccines and other medical countermeasures is by expanding local manufacturing
of routine health products, as well as facilitating and incentivizing demand for
and procurement of those locally-manufactured products, in order to maintain a
true warm base that can be shifted to producing pandemic-specific products when
needed. More information on United States actions to expand access to medical
countermeasures globally is available here.

***

The United States’ positions in these negotiations are built upon decades of
commitments and investments in enhancing global health systems. If included in
the final negotiations, they would make a meaningful difference across all
regions, spurring cooperation, incentivizing participation and moving us well
beyond the status quo. We are hopeful that all countries will demonstrate a
shared commitment to progress through these negotiations. 

###
Note: All HHS press releases, fact sheets and other news materials are available
at https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/index.html.
Like HHS on Facebook , external link , follow HHS on X @HHSgov , external link ,
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Last revised: March 29, 2024


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Content last reviewed March 29, 2024

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