In a powerful joint appeal coinciding with the G7 Summit, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of World Health Organization (WHO), have issued an urgent open letter to leaders of the G7, G20, BRICS, and all nations.
Their message is clear: the world must
finalize the Pathogen Access and Benefit -Sharing (PABS) annex of the WHO Pandemic Agreement to prevent future global health catastrophes.
The letter opens with a stark reminder of the recent past, invoking the collective memory of overflowing hospitals, families separated by glass, and the devastating loss of up to twenty million lives during the deadliest pandemic in a century.
This shared grief, they emphasize, led humanity to promise itself that such a day would not come again unprepared.
While acknowledging the significant achievement of adopting the WHO Pandemic Agreement a little over a year ago ‒ an act of cooperation in a divided world ‒ Lula and Dr. Tedros highlight that a crucial piece remains unfinished.
The PABS annex is vital for enabling countries to swiftly identify dangerous pathogens, share their genetic information, and facilitate development of essential tools like tests, treatments, and vaccines.
Without it, the Agreement cannot enter into force, leaving the world vulnerable and a promise unkept.
The leaders concede that negotiations have been challenging, particularly concerning the equitable definition and sharing of benefits from shared pathogens, governance of the system, and ensuring global equity.
These are the very questions that went unanswered during the last pandemic, leading to preventable suffering and death.
With negotiators set to reconvene from July 6 to 17, the letter makes three direct requests to global leaders:
1. Political Will at the Highest Level: Leaders must signal that finalizing the annex is a national priority, empowering negotiators to reach consensus with courage.
They reassure that the Pandemic Agreement, including the PABS annex, does not compromise state sovereignty, as Article 22, paragraph 2, explicitly states that WHO has no authority to direct or alter a country’s laws or policies.
2. A Spirit of Equity: The PABS system is founded on a fair bargain: nations sharing dangerous pathogens must trust that the resulting vaccines and treatments will reach their own populations.
The letter underscores that inequality drives pandemics, and containing outbreaks at their source is far more cost-effective than fighting a global
spread.
Equity also brings predictability, replacing improvised, crisis-driven access rules with a stable, known framework.
3. A Sense of Urgency: The next pandemic is inevitable, with scientists estimating a nearly one in four chance within the coming decade.
Climate change, shifting land use and biotechnology advancements redrawing the map of pathogen emergence, making the comfortable belief that outbreaks only begin in distant places obsolete.
Leaders are urged to treat July 17 as a deadline, not a milestone, sending an
unambiguous signal that the work must be completed in this round.
The letter concludes by reiterating the immense cost of unreadiness ‒ twenty million lives lost and over thirteen trillion dollars in economic damage from the last pandemic. The investment in system that catches outbreaks early is small by comparison.
Lula and Dr. Tedros appeal to the legacy of global health cooperation, from the eradicating smallpox to combating polio and HIV, asserting that finalizing this Agreement is the natural next chapter
in protecting humanity.
They call on leaders to keep the promise made to the millions lost and to the families who still mourn, ensuring collective protection for all.