Monday was the first day of the next-to-last meeting of the Intergovernmental Working Group. You may remember that this is a new name for yet another WHO-appointed group that is trying to push through the guts of the pandemic treaty’s pandemic pathogen sharing protocol.

I am happy to announce that the process is stuck in quicksand—as in 2023, 2024 and 2025. The negotiators are pissed. And the money to pay for more negotiating sessions and interpreters is limited. This is the first time I have ever heard talk like that: that WHO is short of funds and cannot pay to extend the sessions.

There are still no draft contracts. And there is no agenda item to work on a contract. Africans want to know what the first world will give them if they do start doling out biological warfare agents for “benefits.” But the first world won’t tell them. It seems that everyone is playing chicken. The pharma companies want governments to pay. Governments don’t want to pay. Africans know that once a price is proffered, they can push it up and up. Because what should it cost to prevent another pandemic? Or, on the other hand, what should someone pay to obtain a super dangerous biological warfare agent, aka potential pandemic pathogen?

I will be very surprised if this group can get anything together by May, when the World Health Assembly meets again, given the obvious anger and frustration—which are unusually out in the open this week.

No one has said that building a pandemic pathogen lending library is insane, but I think that message has gotten out.

You too can watch the proceedings if you wish, at CHD’s WHO Watch:

https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/chd-tv/events/who-watch-intergovernmental-working-group-igwg-meetings/