Countries failed Friday to reach consensus on a declaration closing the U.N. General Assembly's pandemic-preparedness meeting. The assembly will consider the draft later; it calls for stronger coordination, financing, lab capacity and access to medicines and vaccines.
Objections included the EU's view that the draft did too little on financing accountability and efficiency, and Germany's call for a stronger focus on prevention. The U.S. opposed references to “divisive ideologies” and to a proposed deal linking countries' sharing of virus samples with access to tests, medicines and vaccines. That arrangement remains under negotiation as a follow-on to the pandemic agreement WHO members approved last year; the U.S. has withdrawn from WHO and did not help finalize that agreement.
The draft also addressed vaccine hesitancy and health-related misinformation, gender-equal policies, and universal access to family-planning and sexual-health services by 2030. Former New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus backed the proposal, as did South Korea, Cape Verde, Guatemala and representatives of African and Caribbean countries.
