African health stakeholders protest against WHO's Pandemic Agreement

African leaders have come out in protest and rejected the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Pandemic Agreement in Geneva, Switzerland, terming it a system that treats their genetic data as a free commodity, while drawing hard lessons from previous HIV and COVID-19 crises that affected the continent.

Speaking on Friday in Nairobi, Dr. Samuel Kinyanjui, Country Director for Aids Healthcare Foundation (AHF) Kenya, noted that Africa accounts for up to 20 per cent of the global population, but has received a mere 3 per cent of COVID-19 vaccines, mostly at the pandemic's tail end, taking into consideration that Pathogen data is a national asset, yet the current global health architecture operates as a predominantly exploitative market.

“The data sharing mechanism cannot be open to be used and abused by anyone; it needs to be a closed system, data from pathogens is intellectual property for the country, and as a result, it is a right for them to demand that they share in the technology, in the treatments and in the vaccines that are going to come from it," Kinyajui retorted adding that with negotiations over the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) system now deadlocked, civil society groups are now warning that the continent is done with the "days of charity" and demands a legally binding, equitable share of life-saving medical countermeasures.

African negotiators are demanding binding technology transfer to avoid a repeat of the 1990s HIV crisis, where antiretrovirals cost 160,000 Kenyan shillings a month—vastly outstripping local salaries—until technology sharing brought prices down to affordable levels.

Aggrey Aluso, Executive Director of Resilience Action Network Africa (RANA), urged African nations to claim their health sovereignty rather than waiting for donor-driven mercy, insisting that relying strictly on Western production during a crisis is a failed strategy, as global demand will always outstrip supply.

“We must build a system that is creating an enabling environment for us to respond to other emerging diseases,” Aluso argued, noting that the singular focus on COVID-19 caused massive regressions in HIV and TB care across the continent because resilient systems had not been built.

“Our governments will respond only when we show that it is important for us. This space is not innocent. It is laden with a lot of interest and you don't know who is making the decisions behind the scenes," he said.

The deadlock in Geneva is not just about pathogens; it is a clash of vested interests and "health politics" and as African manufacturing capabilities mature, the region’s advocates are demanding a balanced global relationship rather than an unequal fight.