India Presses for Fair PABS System at UN Pandemic Meeting

India took the floor at the United Nations High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response, held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on 25 September. Union Health Secretary Punya Salila Srivastava represented the country and argued that the lessons of the COVID-19 years have to be turned into steady investment, stronger institutions and health systems able to take a shock. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare carried her remarks on 26 September 2026.

The demand India placed on the table

The core of the Indian intervention was a fair Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing arrangement, known by its short form PABS. The Health Secretary called the WHO Pandemic Agreement, adopted in May 2025, a milestone, but said its credibility will rest on whether countries that share pathogens and biological material receive vaccines, diagnostics, therapeutics and technologies in return, and in good time, with national sovereignty respected. She added that the political declaration of the meeting should not pre-judge the talks still running on the PABS annex, and that it should be carried out in keeping with the circumstances and capacities of each country. On the One Health approach she made the same point, asking for it to be applied as appropriate under domestic law, international law and national conditions.

What India pointed to from the pandemic

She recalled that during COVID-19 India sent 300 million vaccine doses to about 100 countries and to two United Nations entities, and extended medical assistance to more than 150 countries. She placed this within the idea of One Earth, One Health and India's commitment to the Global South. She also asked that digital public infrastructure be recognised as a global public good, noting that digital tools carried surveillance, vaccination drives, risk communication, supply chains and the continuity of ordinary health services through the pandemic. At home, she said, the work is to widen laboratory networks, emergency coordination, the health workforce, stockpiles and clinical care capacity, funded largely at home, with outside assistance only completing the national effort.

Other voices at the meeting

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus listed the gains made since COVID-19, among them the pandemic agreement itself and the amendments to the International Health Regulations, and warned that delay in settling the PABS system could weaken the response to the next outbreak. United Nations Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed cautioned against complacency and pressed for community-based systems that can catch and contain an outbreak early.

Why it matters

The meeting gave member states a place to measure progress, name the gaps and renew the promise of equitable and durable systems for the health emergencies still to come.