Next week's World Trade Organization ministerial conference, the global trade body's biggest gathering in four years, has been postponed due to the new Omicron Covid-19 variant.
The WTO hoped the four-day gathering in Geneva would breathe new life into the crippled organisation, which has been stuck for years trying to make progress on resolving issues like fishery subsidies.
New director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was also hoping, against the odds, to make progress towards a deal on lifting Covid vaccine patents, proving the WTO had a relevant role to play in combating the pandemic.
But the conference was postponed four days before it was due to start, hours after Omicron was declared a variant of concern by the World Health Organization.