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Presented by Accord for a Healthier World | A blueprint for tackling the Ebola outbreak, and checking in on the early rollout of lenacapavir.
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The debate over the value of data has dominated this year’s World Health Assembly.
The global north has made it clear that it wants data from its counterparts in the global south. In some cases, the reasons are obvious: Governments, researchers, and pharmaceutical companies want information on emerging pathogens so they can work to stop their spread. Look no further than the current outbreaks of Ebola and hantavirus to understand how valuable this data is. In other cases, the reasons are a little more opaque, such as Washington predicating its bilateral health financing deals on decades of access to health data. Nicole Spieker, the CEO of PharmAccess Foundation, offered one theory during a Devex Impact House event on the sidelines of WHA79: “This information, for sure, is going to be used to train AI models of a few very Big Tech companies that are already incredibly rich, that are already incredibly powerful, and are going to be more powerful with the most valuable asset that is out there, the information about our health.” Countries in the global south recognize the value of their data. It’s exactly what has stalled the negotiations over the pathogen access and benefit sharing, or PABS, annex, as countries in the global south demand equitable access to whatever vaccines, treatments, or diagnostics emerge from the information they share. The pharmaceutical industry and its backers in the global north, meanwhile, don’t want to be bound to any specific obligations. The PABS agreement was supposed to be finalized before this WHA, paving the way for the pandemic treaty to move forward. The fact that it wasn’t made clear just how contentious the fight over data has become. Washington has only further complicated the debate with its push for bilateral health deals, Lawrence Gostin, a global health law expert, explained on another panel: “Instead of having a multilateral system for pathogen and benefit sharing, the United States is trying to extract data from a particular country.” But the fact that so many countries — 32 at last count — have signed these agreements with the U.S. reveals that there is actually a price they’re willing to accept for their citizens’ data. Read more: As aid shrinks, African countries question the price of health data  And: ‘America First’ health strategy sparks debate over who benefits most
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A message from Accord for a Healthier World
Where you live shouldn’t impact the quality of your healthcare Accord for a Healthier World is working to close the health equity gap for 1.2 billion people in 45 lower-income countries around the world — expanding access to Pfizer’s medicines and vaccines on a not‑for‑profit basis. |
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The plan unfolds
The race to respond to the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda is on.
As Washington and the World Health Organization trade barbs over the speed of the response, global health leaders have laid out a blueprint that will help guide efforts to contain an outbreak that has caused nearly 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths. In an opinion piece for Devex, Sania Nishtar, who heads Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and Richard Hatchett, who leads the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, said there is an urgent need to study whether a vaccine, effective against another strain of Ebola, might also offer any protection against the Bundibugyo strain that caused this outbreak. At the same time, they are hoping to advance several potential vaccine candidates that are already in early-stage development, though this development will take time. It will also mean rapidly setting up the infrastructure to make vaccine clinical trials — and potential vaccine rollout — possible in an incredibly volatile situation. Opinion: Collaboration will be key in race for vaccine to control rare Ebola strain |
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Getting it out there
Gilead knew it had a blockbuster on its hands as soon as the results came back in 2024, showing that lenacapavir, a twice-yearly injectable, had been 100% effective in preventing HIV infections during a study among thousands of women in Uganda and South Africa.
The pharmaceutical company also “knew it would put on everyone responsibility, including politically, massive calls for access in the countries where you have high incidence,” Michel Joly, Gilead’s vice-president of global patient solutions, explained at a Devex Impact House panel this week. After an unprecedented push by communities, governments, activists, and Gilead, lenacapavir is now available in 10 African countries. And Dr. Neil Buddy Shah, the CEO of Clinton Health Access Initiative, says the demand has been as high as everyone anticipated. “We’re seeing oversubscription from key populations and more generally,” he tells me on the sidelines of WHA. “All of this is very, very promising in terms of, we’ve got the product, we’ve got the demand, and we’re figuring out the delivery channels.” According to a CHAI flash market report out last week, in the eight countries that had introduced lenacapavir by April, more than 11,000 people had been initiated on the drug. That’s still far short of the kinds of numbers everyone involved in the rollout hopes to reach. But ongoing hurdles, including funding and building program infrastructure to ensure people will continue to receive injections, could limit its uptake, Mitchell Warren, AVAC’s executive director, said. Rhoda Igweta of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation raised another challenge during the Devex Impact House session: Cuts in U.S. funding for the global AIDS response led to the firing of thousands of health workers. But those health workers are crucial to providing lenacapavir, which must be administered in a clinical setting. “We need to make good on the promise of a product that can prevent infections in everyone at risk everywhere in the world,” Warren said during the same session. “That will require us to dig deep financially, dig deep programmatically.” For Shah, “the question now really is mobilizing the resources to scale it up.” Despite this initial success and efforts by CHAI and others to bring generic versions of lenacapavir online by early 2027, there’s no guarantee the funds will be there to ensure the drug reaches everyone who could benefit from it. But with actual subscriber numbers now available, Shah said it’s time “to start to have that conversation about the whole next phase and what it will look like to fully close the gap in terms of funding.” Read: The promise — and pitfalls – of lenacapivir  Catch up on all our coverage from WHA79.
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A message from Accord for a Healthier World
Your income shouldn’t determine your health outcomes
The Accord for a Healthier World believes lasting health impact goes beyond supplying medicines and vaccines. Sustainable access is only achieved when countries and partners work together to strengthen the systems that enable delivery — addressing barriers that delay, limit, or prevent access to care. That’s why we collaborate with governments and partners to build capacity and capabilities, helping ensure that treatments not only reach countries but the people who need them most. |
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New tech, same problems
While many are looking to AI technology to transform healthcare systems, it’s definitely not that simple.
Ahead of WHA, Devex got in touch with 11 global health leaders to discuss the hard truths facing the sector. Kinz ul Eman, CEO at the Dopasi Foundation, told us: “Technology, AI, and innovation will only transform health if they are embedded in trusted local systems; otherwise, they will simply create a more sophisticated version of the same inequity.” At Devex Impact House, Ghanaian technologist and entrepreneur Bright Simons spoke about another frailty of AI technology: its reliance on human input and ingenuity. “How many times can you train an AI model on its own synthetically generated data before performance starts to drop?” Simons asked the audience. “The answer is twice.” That’s why, rather than replacing healthcare workers, he urged, AI should be used to strengthen them. Read: Global health in 2026 — hard truths from 11 leaders Also: Why healthcare may resist Big Tech’s AI playbook
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Come together
While much of this WHA has been about divisions (see the battles over data access), member states did come together to adopt the first-ever resolution on steatotic liver disease — aka conditions caused by having excess fat in the liver — which affects more than 1.7 billion globally. The resolution urged member states to integrate steatotic liver disease into their national plans to address noncommunicable diseases. Jeffrey Lazarus, who cochairs the Global Think-Tank on Steatotic Liver Disease, said the adoption was “not just a symbolic step,” in a statement he shared with Devex. “It was a necessary foundation for prevention, early detection, integrated care, and policy accountability.”  Enjoyed this content? Devex CheckUp — our free weekly newsletter — delivers more insights on global health straight to your inbox. Sign up today.
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Thank you for reading this special edition of the Newswire, edited by Fiona Zublin, copy edited by Nicole Tablizo, and produced by Yula Mediavillo. Have a news tip? Email [email protected].
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