India’s stakes in the emerging WHO Pandemic Agreement
Quick dive
- The Pandemic Agreement was adopted by 124 WHO member-states in 2025; no country voted against it and 11 abstained.
- The agreement is not yet open for ratification because negotiations continue on an annex concerning the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing system.
- PABS is intended to connect access to pathogen materials and sequence information with fair access for low- and middle-income countries to vaccines, medicines and therapeutics.
- India supported multilateral pandemic preparedness at the 2026 UN high-level meeting while stressing national sovereignty, domestic circumstances and equitable access to health technologies.
- exam_relevance: tests the 124-state adoption, 11 abstentions, unfinished PABS annex and India’s sovereignty-equity position; it echoes UPSC themes on WHO, global health, TRIPS and India’s pharmaceutical diplomacy, with a concrete post-COVID institutional design question rather than a generic pandemic reference.
Full explanation
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