UNITED NATIONS, May 21 (APP): UN Secretary-General Sunday warned that despite the headway over the past 75 years, progress on human health in the wake of COVID, climate change, and other challenges, was “in peril\u201d.<\/p>\n
The UN chief, who was addressing via video-link the annual opening of the World Health Assembly, the decision-making body of the Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO), said the UN agency was born out of a spirit of cooperation, leading to dramatic improvements in human health.<\/p>\n
\u201cGlobal life expectancy \u2013 up over 50 percent; Infant mortality \u2013 down sixty percent in 30 years; smallpox \u2013 eradicated; And polio on the verge of extinction,” he said. “But progress is in peril. War and conflict threaten millions. The health of billions is endangered by the climate crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n
The secretary-general said COVID-19 had stalled and even reversed, the steady improvements in public health, and led to backsliding in 2030.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut this is not inevitable\u201d, he continued. We can return to the path of progress. We can realize our ambitions for health and well-being for all. But only if the world works together. If we cooperate, despite the tensions straining relations between nations.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said promoting public health long-term, meant strengthening the independence, authority and financing of the WHO, \u201cwhich stands at the heart of our international effort\u201d and must have a key coordinating role in fighting the next pandemic.<\/p>\n
As international negotiations continue for a new pandemic plan of action, \u201cit is vital to prepare for the health threats to come \u2013 from new pandemics to climate dangers \u2013 so that we prevent where we can, and respond fast and effectively where we cannot\u201d, the UN chief said.<\/p>\n
Reinforcing that message in his introductory speech to the Assembly, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that the world\u2019s emergence from the dark tunnel of COVID-19, was \u201cnot just the end of a bad dream from which we have woken. We cannot simply carry on as we did before.\u201d<\/p>\n
The painful lessons of the pandemic must be understood, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cChief among those lessons is that we can only face shared threats with a shared response.\u201d<\/p>\n
Similar to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the pandemic accord under negotiation, \u201cmust be a historic agreement to make a paradigm shift in global health security, recognizing that our fates are interwoven\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the moment for us to write a new chapter in global health history, together; to chart a new path forward, together; to make the world safer for our children and grandchildren, together.<\/p>\n
The Assembly opened as WHO and its partners launched a new global network to help protect people everywhere from infection disease threats, through the power of pathogen genomics.<\/p>\n
The International Pathogen Surveillance Network (IPSN) will provide a platform to connect countries and regions, improving systems for collecting and analyzing samples, using data to drive public health decision-making, and sharing that information more broadly, said WHO in a press release.<\/p>\n
Pathogen genomics analyzes the genetic code of viruses, bacteria and other disease-causing organisms to understand how infectious they are, how deadly they are, and how they spread.<\/p>\n
The IPSN will have a Secretariat hosted by the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence, with an ambitious goal, \u201cthat can also play a vital role in health security: to give every country access to pathogen genomic sequencing and analytics as part of its public health system,\u201d Tedros said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs was so clearly demonstrated to us during the COVID-19 pandemic, the world is stronger when it stands together to fight shared health threats\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UNITED NATIONS, May 21 (APP): UN Secretary-General Sunday warned that despite the headway over the past 75 years, progress on human health in the wake of COVID, climate change, and other challenges, was “in peril\u201d. The UN chief, who was addressing via video-link the annual […]<\/p>\n
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