No, WHO won’t charge Australia $5b a year for pandemic treaty

AAP FACTCHECK – Australia will have to pay the World Health Organization (WHO) more than $5 billion each year as part of a global pandemic treaty, social media posts claim.

This is false. The figure comes from a working document of a draft pandemic agreement that is still being negotiated, and the figure is not included in recent drafts.

Regardless, the figure relates to money to be set aside for a member state’s own pandemic preparedness. It has nothing to do with paying the WHO.

The claim is made on two occasions on the Facebook page of former Qantas pilot Graham Hood, whose claims have been debunked by AAP FactCheck previously. 

Karen Fox, from the Australia Exits the WHO group, makes the claim in an interview with Mr Hood.

“The negotiations we were talking about … were the World Health Assembly in May … those negotiations are ongoing until the end of the year … There’s a hell of a lot of haste about this and that’s probably because of the amount of money involved,” Ms Fox says (22 minutes 30 seconds).

“The amount of money they’ll be requesting from Australia from that pandemic treaty is approximately five per cent of our health budget for pandemic preparedness alone…that comes to over $5.2 billion a year that we’re sending straight to the Bill Gates-controlled WHO.”

Hours later Mr Hood posted another video featuring Ms Fox along with the caption: “Are you fully committed to giving the bloated, corrupt W.H.O bureaucrats more than $5 billion a year – or 5% of the Australian Health budget for pandemic preparedness alone every year?”

The pandemic treaty referred to was first mooted in December 2021 as part of the WHO’s attempt to better respond to future pandemics. 

At the WHO’s 77th World Health Assembly, held in May 2024, member states committed to complete negotiations on the treaty within a year. 

The WHO’s “zero draft” working document, published in February  2023, features the reference from which the $5b figure has been calculated.

On page 25, it states each party shall commit to increase or maintain “domestic funding” by allocating in annual budgets “not lower than 5% of its current health expenditure to pandemic prevention, preparedness, response and health systems recovery…”

Australia’s current federal health spending is more than $110b a year, so five per cent would mean Australia allocating at least $5.5b each year.

There is no suggestion in the wording that the money would go to the WHO. In fact, it clearly states the five per cent refers to “domestic funding”.

The percentage figure has been removed from more recent drafts of the work-in-progress document.

In the current draft (p27) under “sustainable financing”, it now states that each party shall, within its means, “maintain or increase domestic funding, as necessary”.

Later (p28) there is mention of “mobilising additional financial resources” to help “in particular developing country parties … through grants and concessional loans”.

A spokesman for the WHO told AAP FactCheck the claim was “blatantly false and has never been proposed”.

Referring to the five per cent in the early draft, he said: “This meant governments could consider dedicating a portion of their own health spending to their own national pandemic control systems (not to pay anything to WHO).”

Andre den Exter, an associate professor of health law at Erasmus School of Law, confirmed to AAP FactCheck the five per cent domestic funding stipulation had been removed from the working document.

In its place, he said, member states would contribute to what is called a Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing System, financially and by sharing vaccine products and technologies. 

“Fees will be decided in a separate legal document,” Dr den Exter said.

Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade told AAP FactCheck there were no proposals under consideration that would require substantial new funding commitments to the WHO to enable participation in the pandemic agreement.

“We are actively engaging in the negotiation of a new pandemic agreement to address lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic and reduce impacts of future health emergencies for Australia and our region,” a spokesperson said, adding that in 2022-23, Australia provided $67.55m to the WHO.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced in September 2023 that Australia will provide $100m to the WHO over five years to support global efforts to prevent, prepare for and respond to pandemics.

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