The head of the UN's health agency warned Friday that history would not forgive countries if they failed to strike a pandemic treaty at the last hurdle, reports BSS.
World Health Organization (WHO) leader Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the comments with progress slow and time running out for the talks.
Countries had reached the cusp of concluding a landmark agreement on how to tackle future pandemics together, as they wrapped up the penultimate week of talks, said Tedros.
"You have made progress -- maybe not as much as you would have hoped but still there is progress," he said as the penultimate round of talks closed at the WHO headquarters in Geneva.
"We are at a crucial point as you move to finalise the pandemic agreement" in time for the WHO's annual decision-making assembly in May.
"You are so close. Closer than you think. You are on the cusp of making history."
But with only five more days of formal negotiations left, scheduled for April 7-11, countries agreed to hold informal meetings in March to try to find compromises on the trickiest issues.
Tedros urged countries not to sink the agreement on a word, a comma or a percentage in the text, imploring them not to make perfect the enemy of the good.
"History will not forgive us if we fail to deliver," he warned.
Bd-pratidin English/Tanvir Raihan
