Pandemic talks end without a deal

Negotiations on a landmark global agreement on handling future pandemics ended Friday without a deal -- though countries said they wanted to keep pushing for an accord.

Scarred by the devastation caused by Covid-19 -- which killed millions of people, shredded economies and crippled health systems -- countries have spent two years trying to hammer out binding commitments on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.

The talks gathered momentum in the final weeks, but failed to meet a final deadline before next week's World Health Assembly -- the annual gathering of the World Health Organization's 194 member states.

"This is not a failure," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus insisted as the talks ended at the UN health agency's headquarters in Geneva.

He urged countries to see it as a "good opportunity to re-energise".

The assembly, which runs from Monday until June 1, will take stock and decide what to do next.

The main disputes revolved around access to pathogens detected within countries, and to pandemic-fighting products such as vaccines derived from that knowledge. Other tricky topics were sustainable financing, pathogen surveillance, supply chains, and the equitable distribution of tests, treatments and jabs but also the means to produce them.