Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated global efforts at imagining a renewed mechanism or instrument centered on combating global health issues by coalescing to deal with the various effects of a pandemic. However, can efforts at reimagining global-health paradigms be limited to the challenges of a pandemic? While the pandemic treaty underscores the importance of (re)setting the global health agenda, perhaps it misses a golden opportunity to utilize an opportunity that led to a confluence of nations. Perhaps the post-Covid period is an appropriate moment in which to coordinate and embolden combined efforts at negotiating deep-rooted and complex global-health challenges by positioning health-care access as the fulcrum for trade. An alternative regime could perhaps draw on the nation-first approach by focusing on local realities, as the pandemic treaty has done. Whether such a regime took the form of a treaty, an agreement, or some other instrument, it may be time to consider positing equity in health care, whereby access is not sacrificed at the altar of the interests of vested bargaining parties. We propose a public-health treaty that recognizes and accommodates the unique burdens placed on different countries from disparate disease burdens or differing health infrastructures. We propose clear structural mechanisms to encourage research and development, and technology transfer at different levels from the broad-based lens of global public health, rather than the narrow vision of the pandemic treaty.</jats:p>