The United Nations High-level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response (PPPR) convened on September 25, 2026, to address global health security investments. UN officials warned that funding has declined since the acute phase of COVID-19, threatening international readiness for future health emergencies.
Financing Gaps and Global Security Priorities
Opening the session, Dr. Khalilur Rahman, President of the General Assembly, outlined three central requirements for safeguarding international health: closing financing gaps, adopting a stronger “One Health” approach, and ensuring equitable access to vaccines, diagnostics, therapeutics and other essential medical tools.
“All countries need and deserve well-funded community-based systems for detection, surveillance, communication and containment,” Rahman said, calling for predictable and sustainable financing. He emphasized that pandemic preparedness must address the links between human, animal and environmental health. Understanding these interactions, he argued, could help prevent outbreaks from reaching human populations.
UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina J. Mohammed reinforced the urgency of institutionalizing the lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic. “No country can protect itself alone,” Mohammed stated, underscoring the need to turn the lessons of COVID-19 into long-term preparedness.
The Cycle of Panic and Neglect
Speaking at a press briefing on the same day, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus cautioned that global investment in health security has declined since the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tedros described the current trajectory as a cycle of “panic and neglect.”
While international bodies and member states have established new preparedness architectures—including the Pandemic Fund, strengthened pandemic and epidemic intelligence, vaccine and medical countermeasure initiatives, the mRNA Technology Transfer Programme, the WHO BioHub System and the Global Health Emergency Corps—Tedros stressed that the scale and speed of investment remain insufficient.
Recent outbreaks, including Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, demonstrate that infectious diseases continue to cross borders and become international threats. Tedros noted that the possibility of a future respiratory pandemic remains particularly concerning because of the potential scale of its impact.
Stalled Negotiations on Pathogen Sharing
A key issue still under negotiation is the Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) system. The proposed mechanism is designed to establish arrangements for sharing pathogen materials and information while ensuring that countries providing those resources benefit from vaccines, diagnostics and other products developed from them.
Tedros urged countries to conclude the negotiations. “So today, I leave you with just one request: get PABS done as soon as possible. Please conclude the negotiations as soon as possible,” he said, reiterating that “we are as strong as our weakest link.”
He added that financial support directed toward countries more vulnerable to pandemics should not be viewed as charity, but rather as collective action against the common goal of pandemic prevention.
