UNAIDS welcomes the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Political Declaration on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response (PPPR) on 12 October 2026, a significant reaffirmation of global solidarity and multilateral cooperation in the face of growing health threats.
UNAIDS particularly welcomes the Declaration's emphasis on equity, cooperation and benefit-sharing. The lessons of AIDS, COVID-19 and Ebola are clear: health security depends not only on scientific innovation and strong health systems, but also on whether lifesaving technologies and services reach everyone who needs them, especially the communities most affected.
Governments must now urgently conclude an equitable agreement on the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) system. This is an essential next step in turning the commitments of the Declaration into action. Beyond PABS, UNAIDS calls for stronger commitments to technology sharing and investment in local and regional production of lifesaving health technologies. Building these capacities to fight today's pandemics is also essential to ensuring equitable access when the next pandemic strikes.
"The real test starts now. Action cannot wait for the next pandemic," said Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS. "We must invest in equity today if we want to be prepared for tomorrow."
For more than three decades, UNAIDS has worked with governments, communities, scientists and partners to respond to HIV and AIDS. This experience has demonstrated that pandemics cannot be defeated by medicines and diagnostics alone. Success depends on political leadership, sustained investment, community engagement, respect for human rights and the empowerment of people most affected.
The Global Council on Inequality, AIDS and Pandemics , convened by UNAIDS, has provided compelling evidence that inequality is not simply a consequence of pandemics; it is a driver of their spread and impact. Pandemics, in turn, deepen existing inequalities, creating a vicious cycle.
In its report and subsequent analysis published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Council found that countries ranked as more prepared under conventional global preparedness measures did not, on average, achieve better outcomes in responding to COVID-19 or AIDS. By contrast, countries with lower levels of inequality tended to achieve better outcomes.
These findings challenge the way the world measures pandemic preparedness. Laboratory capacity, disease surveillance, emergency response systems and medical technologies are indispensable. But they are not sufficient. Their effectiveness can be undermined by economic inequality, discrimination, weak social protection and the exclusion of communities most at risk.
UNAIDS therefore calls for a fundamental shift in how pandemic preparedness is assessed and measured. National and global preparedness frameworks must go beyond technical health capacities to assess income and social inequalities, access to healthcare, social protection, discrimination, and the strength of community-led systems. Countries must be equipped not only to detect and respond to outbreaks, but also to protect people from the social and economic shocks that pandemics unleash.
This means integrating inequality assessments into national preparedness and response plans, investing in emergency social protection and community-led responses, and ensuring that pandemic measures reduce rather than deepen inequalities.
It also requires a fairer international financial system. Developing countries need access to affordable finance and sufficient fiscal space to strengthen health systems and respond to emergencies. Countries and international financial institutions should consider measures such as suspending debt repayments during pandemics, alongside broader debt relief and financing reforms, so that governments can protect lives and livelihoods rather than divert scarce resources to debt servicing.
The PABS system, being negotiated as an annex to the WHO Pandemic Agreement, is intended to link the rapid sharing of pathogens and scientific information with the fair and equitable sharing of vaccines, diagnostics and treatments developed from them. A strong agreement would help build trust between countries and enable a faster, fairer global response to future health emergencies.
The AIDS and COVID-19 pandemics also exposed the dangers of concentrating the production of lifesaving technologies in a handful of countries and regions. Expanding local and regional manufacturing, supported by technology transfer, stronger regulatory capacity and sustainable financing, is essential to building resilient supply chains and ensuring that lifesaving innovations reach people everywhere.
"Thirty years of responding to HIV have taught us that health security and social justice go hand in hand," said Byanyima. "A country cannot be truly prepared for a pandemic if millions of its people cannot access healthcare, lack social protection or are excluded because of poverty or discrimination. We must measure preparedness by how well countries can protect everyone, especially those most vulnerable."
The measure of global pandemic preparedness must be not only how quickly the world detects a threat or develops a vaccine, but how effectively and equitably it protects every life.
UNAIDS
The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) leads and inspires the world to achieve its shared vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths. UNAIDS unites the efforts of 11 UN organizations-UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, UNDP, UNFPA, UNODC, UN Women, ILO, UNESCO, WHO and the World Bank-and works closely with global and national partners towards ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. Learn more at unaids.org
