Dan Otieno Owala, People’s Health Movement Kenya; Dr Kinyanjui, Country Director, AHF Kenya; and Mr. Willis Omondi, Programme Manager, Mind to Heart Community-Based Organization, during a press briefing in Nairobi on Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS).
African civil society groups have warned governments not to approve a key annex to the World Health Organization Pandemic Agreement unless it guarantees legally binding benefit-sharing for developing countries.
Speaking in Nairobi on Thursday ahead of fresh negotiations in Geneva, health activists said Africa risks repeating the inequalities seen during the Covid-19 pandemic if richer countries are allowed to access African pathogen samples and genetic data without enforceable obligations to share vaccines, medicines and technology.
The warning comes days before WHO member states resume talks on the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) Annex from April 27 to May 1, ahead of the 79th World Health Assembly in May.
The annex will determine how pathogen samples and genetic sequencing data are shared globally and how benefits from vaccines, diagnostics and treatments developed from those materials are returned to countries that provide them.
“Most diseases with pandemic potential, Ebola, Marburg, Lassa fever, and mpox, are endemic in Africa, not in Europe or the United States. Yet Europe and the U.S. hold stockpiles of mpox vaccines. Africa does not. Where did they get the genetic sequencing data? From Africa. Free of charge,” said Aggrey Aluso, executive director of the Resilience Action Network Africa.
“This is not a negotiation about charity. It is about one of the most strategic resources in 21st-century public health, and every country has something to offer for a robust PABS. A good agreement is possible, and we have all the right propositions on the table. All actors have to act in good faith.”
The WHO Pandemic Agreement was adopted in May 2025 after years of negotiations following the Covid-19 pandemic, but it cannot be opened for signature until the PABS annex is finalised.
African negotiators have pushed for mandatory benefit-sharing provisions, arguing that countries supplying pathogen samples should be guaranteed access to vaccines, diagnostics and treatments during outbreaks.
During Covid-19, African scientists rapidly shared data on variants such as Beta and Omicron, yet the continent received less than three per cent of vaccines despite accounting for 17 per cent of the global population, according to BMJ Global Health.
“When developing countries share their pathogens, they deserve binding, enforceable benefit-sharing in return, not hollow promises,” said Dr Samuel Kinyanjui, AHF Kenya country director.
“The Pandemic Agreement cannot be ratified without the PABS Annex, and the Annex must not be approved without binding equity provisions. Delay is denial.”
Negotiations held in Geneva in March ended without agreement after African countries rejected a draft text they said weakened equity provisions.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said disagreements remained around “equity, access, sovereignty and global solidarity.”
According to Health Policy Watch, about 100 low- and middle-income countries are supporting mandatory benefit-sharing rules, while several high-income countries, especially in the European Union, favour voluntary commitments instead.
Aluso said Africa was negotiating from a position of strength because most emerging infectious diseases originate on the continent.
According to the WHO Regional Office for Africa, zoonotic disease outbreaks in Africa rose by 63 per cent between 2012 and 2022 compared to the previous decade.
“Africa carries 25 per cent of the global disease burden with 17 per cent of the world’s population, and we manufacture less than one per cent of our own vaccines. That is not a humanitarian equation — it is a negotiating position,” Aluso said.
“Europe has clear red lines. Germany has said publicly it will not sign an agreement with enforceable provisions. Have you heard a red line from an African state? I have not. And that silence is its own answer.”
Civil society groups also criticised a proposal under discussion that would create both an “open” and “closed” system for accessing pathogen materials.
Under the proposal, researchers using the open route would not need to register or agree to benefit-sharing obligations.
Activists warned that companies would likely use the less-regulated pathway, weakening the entire agreement.
“The last pandemic was not a failure of science — it was a failure of solidarity. Vaccines existed, treatments existed, but access was rationed by geography and wealth,” said Dan Owala of the People’s Health Movement Kenya.
“If the PABS Annex is stripped of binding contracts and traceable obligations, we will have to rebuild the same architecture that failed our people the first time. Solidarity written in pencil is not solidarity at all.”
Kenyan activists said the outcome of the Geneva talks could also affect the country’s ambitions to expand local pharmaceutical manufacturing.
Kenya is among eight African countries that have achieved WHO Maturity Level 3 for medicines regulation. The Ministry of Health’s Local Manufacturing Strategy 2025–2030 aims to produce half of Kenya’s essential medicines locally, although more than 70 per cent are currently imported.
“At the community level, what these negotiations decide is whether the next outbreak finds us prepared or abandoned,” said Willis Omondi of Mind To Heart Community-Based Organisation.
“Young Kenyans do not read draft texts, but they live the consequences. Our plea to Geneva is straightforward: remember that behind every paragraph is a community — and choose accountability over convenience.”
Aluso warned African countries against accepting a compromise deal that lacks enforceable commitments.
“The ACT-Accelerator, the global mechanism launched to ensure equitable COVID-19 access, needed US$38 billion and spent most of its life with a funding gap of more than half,” he said.
“Pledges do not pay for vaccines. Promises do not reach clinics. If what emerges next week reinstates ‘mutually agreed terms’ and ‘resources permitting,’ the same language that failed us during COVID, then we should wait for another round. A bad agreement is worse than no agreement.”