Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Health ministers from the 194 member countries of the World Health Organization (WHO) have arrived in Geneva for the World Health Assembly which opens 18 May in Geneva with an agenda overshadowed by the A/H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic.

The assembly is to address the pandemic and the thorny issue of sharing influenza virus. Negotiators from rich and developing countries failed to agree Saturday 16 May on how to share the benefits of flu research, in the form of vaccines. Sharing vital information among countries about the strains of flu virus is likely to be slowed down as a result, reports Reuters.

Thirty-nine countries have officially reported 8,480 of the new flu cases to the WHO and 72 persons have died of the disease. Unofficial tallies go much higher, and Japan announced a dramatic rise in cases to over 90 this weekend, none of them deemed critical, reports the BBC.

The assembly will also consider four other key areas of WHO work: international health regulations and implementation, primary health care, social determinants of health and monitoring the achievement of health-related United Nations millennium development goals.

The assembly ends 22 May. It was originally to have run to 27 May but was cut short because of the need for ministers to address the emergency in their countries.

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