News
G20 Health Ministers Call For Building Resilient, Equitable Access To Affordable Medicines In Developing World
The outcome document comprises 25 paragraphs, which were unanimously agreed to by all G20 delegations, except for paragraph 22, which pertains to the chair’s summary and was focused on the geopolitical situation in Ukraine
New Delhi: The G20 Health Ministers meeting saw consensus on building more resilient, equitable and inclusive health systems with equitable access to safe, quality-assured and affordable vaccines, therapeutics, diagnostics, and other medical countermeasures, especially in low and middle income countries and small island developing states. The outcome document comprises 25 paragraphs, which were unanimously agreed to by all G20 delegations, except for paragraph 22, which pertains to the chair’s summary, and was focused on the geopolitical situation in Ukraine.
According to the outcome document released after the meet in Gandhinagar on August 19, consensus was built on setting up research and development and manufacturing network for vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics, along with setting up a platform for making open-source and inter-operable digital solutions readily available. The health ministers also look forward to a successful outcome of the ongoing negotiations in the inter-governmental negotiating body (INB) for a legally binding WHO convention, agreement or other international instrument on pandemic prevention preparedness and response, by May 2024.
The health ministers recognised the need to enhance the resilience of health systems against the impact of climate change and committed to prioritising climate-resilient health systems development, building sustainable and low-carbon/low greenhouse gas (GHG) emission health systems and healthcare supply chains that deliver high-quality healthcare, mobilise resources for resilient, low-carbon sustainable health systems, and facilitate collaboration, sources said.
The G20 members committed to tackling AMR (antimicrobial resistance) comprehensively following the One Health approach through strengthening multi-sectoral governance, coordination; research and development (R&D); infection prevention and control (IPC); water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH); improving awareness of AMR; promoting responsible use of antimicrobials, including preserving the existing therapeutics across humans, animals and plant sectors through antimicrobial stewardship. They also recognised the potential role of evidence-based traditional and complementary medicine (T&CM), and take note of WHO’s efforts in this direction, including global and collaborating centres, and clinical trial registries, sources said.
They acknowledged the potential of evidence-based T&CM practices in public health delivery systems, provided they are rigorously and scientifically validated to be safe and effective as per WHO TM Strategy 2014-23, extended till 2025.
The G20 member states also realised the significance of digital health and health data modernisation in strengthening healthcare systems and making health services accessible and equitable to all, including recognising the work of many institutions towards digital transformation of health systems, but they are primarily operating in silos leading to reduced country-level impact, sources said.
They recommended that the existing digital health initiatives are closely coordinated to complement and support an interconnected digital health ecosystem and committed to supporting the WHO’s efforts to establish the Global Initiative on Digital Health which will support the implementation of WHO member-states endorsed WHO’s Global Digital Health Strategy 2020-2025.
Ministers noted that global initiative on digital health, as a WHO-managed network, can help reduce fragmentation, provide convergence of digital health initiatives and voluntary funds, including through promotion of interoperable open source and open standard digital solutions as defined in the WHO Global Strategy on Digital Health.
They also acknowledged that the initiative will support countries to plan and implement high quality digital health systems and facilitate patients to access healthcare services based on a people-centric approach.
Also Read: Pandemic Taught Us That Nobody Is Safe Until Everyone Is Safe: Union Minister Dr Bharati Pawar
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
NDTV – Dettol have been working towards a clean and healthy India since 2014 via the Banega Swachh India initiative, which is helmed by Campaign Ambassador Amitabh Bachchan. The campaign aims to highlight the inter-dependency of humans and the environment, and of humans on one another with the focus on One Health, One Planet, One Future – Leaving No One Behind. It stresses on the need to take care of, and consider, everyone’s health in India – especially vulnerable communities – theLGBTQ population,indigenous people, India’s different tribes, ethnic and linguistic minorities, people with disabilities, migrants, geographically remote populations, gender and sexual minorities. In wake of the currentCOVID-19 pandemic, the need for WASH (Water,SanitationandHygiene) is reaffirmed as handwashing is one of the ways to prevent Coronavirus infection and other diseases. The campaign will continue to raise awareness on the same along with focussing on the importance of nutrition and healthcare for women and children, fightmalnutrition, mental wellbeing, self care, science and health,adolescent health & gender awareness. Along with the health of people, the campaign has realised the need to also take care of the health of the eco-system. Our environment is fragile due to human activity, which is not only over-exploiting available resources, but also generating immense pollution as a result of using and extracting those resources. The imbalance has also led to immense biodiversity loss that has caused one of the biggest threats to human survival – climate change. It has now been described as a “code red for humanity.” The campaign will continue to cover issues likeair pollution,waste management,plastic ban,manual scavengingand sanitation workers andmenstrual hygiene. Banega Swasth India will also be taking forward the dream of Swasth Bharat, the campaign feels that only a Swachh or clean India wheretoiletsare used andopen defecation free (ODF)status achieved as part of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan launched byPrime Minister Narendra Modiin 2014, can eradicate diseases like diahorrea and the country can become a Swasth or healthy India.