Global Health on the Sidelines at Town Hall for UN Secretary General Candidates

For Immediate Release: August 3, 2026

Contact: Cassidy Parshall, cassidy@uaem.org

NEW YORK, NY – On July 23rd, the six candidates running to become the next Secretary-General of the United Nations gathered at the UN Headquarters for a town hall, where they answered questions about their priorities, should they be selected to lead. 

Two representatives from Universities Allied for Essential Medicines attended the town hall and noted only one question was directly related to global health, posed directly to candidate Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, which was on pandemic preparedness. She emphasized that while the world is more prepared to handle a future pandemic than before COVID-19, there is significant work to be done. She notes that without the necessary financing and access to vaccines, we remain at risk of repeating the same catastrophe that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic. This broadly reflects the sentiment within the global health community: despite widespread lessons learned in 2020, without structural reforms an equitable global response is unlikely to be seen in the future.

In a pointed follow-up question, Rodrigues-Birkett was asked “if wealthy nations were to hoard vaccines, what would you do [as Secretary-General]?” She answered, “The Secretary-General would have to use her voice” and beyond that, “you would need the cooperation of all member states to address this.” 

That response pointed to a lingering issue that received no direct discussion during the town hall, the Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS) Annex. This final segment of the Pandemic Agreement addresses precisely what the question was getting at: a framework for the equitable distribution of vaccines, and resources, during a future pandemic. Without member states agreeing on the language within this Annex, the Pandemic Agreement cannot be implemented. 

Rodrigues-Birkett closed by saying, “We have seen what the pandemic has cost before, and I don’t think that we want that to happen again.” At UAEM, we continue to call for Member States to reach a timely equitable agreement on the PABS Annex so the Pandemic Agreement can be the foundation for future pandemics.

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