Member State Representatives; Partners from diplomatic missions, UN agencies, multilateral organizations and civil society; WHO Representatives and other WHO Colleagues; Ambassadors and Representatives from diplomatic missions; the Regional Representative from UN-HABITAT; Representatives from multilateral partners such as the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations; Resident Coordinators, Country Representatives and UN Colleagues from UNDP, UNICEF, IOM, UNHABITAT, UNFPA; Representatives of international financial institutions, including the Asian Development Bank and World Bank; Members of international NGOs, philanthropic foundations, and partners,
Good morning and a warm welcome to this Regional Health Partners’ Forum.
I have convened this meeting to strengthen Region-wide support for maintaining essential health services as a core part of the COVID-19 response.
Previous disease outbreaks have shown that the disruption to essential health services caused by an outbreak can be more deadly than the outbreak itself.
Pillar 9 of WHO’s strategic preparedness and response plan speaks directly to this concern and the need to prevent it from occurring.
In a crisis as fast-moving and unpredictable as the current one, we must be agile and adaptive, creating opportunities to review and share best practices and lessons learned.
Tomorrow it will be six months since WHO declared COVID-19 a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
As of yesterday, the Region had reported more than 1.8 million cases and more than 41 000 deaths, accounting for around 11% and 6% of the global burden of cases and deaths, respectively.
At the macro level, the spread of COVID-19 in the Region has accelerated in recent months. But take a closer look and the picture is more nuanced.
Though country burdens may be uneven, all outbreaks are essentially local outbreaks, which means that the lessons learned from one hot-spot or cluster can be applied to another.
The WHO Regional Office is uniquely positioned to bring together Member States and partners who face similar challenges and constraints, strengths and opportunities, to find ways to maintain essential health services throughout the pandemic response and into the recovery.
Since the beginning of the outbreak, I have been in constant touch with Health Ministers on this crucial area of work, and I look forward to your continued support, which will accelerate momentum ahead of a ministerial meeting in early August, and then in to the Regional Committee in September.
To date, the pandemic has greatly disrupted the provision of essential health services across the world.
We know that in more than half of all countries surveyed globally the pandemic has partially or completely disrupted services for some or all noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).
We know that in March and April more than half of all countries globally experienced moderate-to-severe disruptions or a total suspension of vaccination services.
And we know that infectious disease programmes have been significantly impeded. A recent survey found that if global TB case detection decreases by an average 25% over a three-month period, an additional 190 000 TB deaths will occur.
The global picture is consistent with what is happening in our Region.
Initial findings from a WHO regional review carried out in May and June indicate that essential services across all programmes and interventions have been disrupted in most countries.
While the scale of disruption differs, two common areas of concern have emerged.
First, NCD diagnosis and treatment. The impact observed in all countries has the potential to reverse progress on our Flagship Priority of preventing and controlling NCDs, and the Region’s advances towards the 2025 targets, which are essential to achieving related Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets.
Second, areas such as TB and immunization, which were key points of focus under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and which feature in the Region’s Flagship Priorities and the SDG targets. Alarmingly, we now face a possible reversal of the MDG achievements, which would make it difficult to achieve our Priorities and relevant SDG targets.
We must act with speed and scale to restore and maintain essential health services to protect our many gains.
I commend all countries in the Region for the progress they have made in recent years under the Decade for Health Workforce Strengthening.
India and Indonesia have overcome key health workforce shortages and I take this opportunity to congratulate them.
At a regional meeting last month, all countries shared how they are implementing health workforce strengthening in the context of COVID-19.
Today you have a chance to build on those discussions and begin developing a strategy to repurpose or reassign health workers in a way that supports the continued functioning of all services.
I am inspired by the support partners have already provided to WHO and its Member States.
The Supply Portal has facilitated the delivery of critical resources to all Member States.
The Partners Platform has provided real-time tracking to support response planning and implementation.
WHO has been pleased to partner with UNICEF and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, through a regional working group aimed at identifying financial and technical needs to ensure immunization services continue.
Based on this collaborative effort, Gavi’s health system strengthening funds have been reprogrammed in Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal and Timor-Leste.
WHO’s close collaboration with UNICEF at the regional and national level has helped countries assess and overcome logistical challenges, preventing even a single vaccine stock-out.
WHO continues to leverage longstanding mechanisms such as the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, standby partners and emergency medical teams to provide specialized technical support to Member States.
Our partnership with UNOCHA has been vital to scaling up risk communication and community engagement and protecting vulnerable populations such as migrants and refugees.
As a sector, we must continue to be creative in leveraging formal mechanisms to achieve our shared objectives.
For example, the Global Action Plan for Healthy Lives and Well-being for All, which brings together 12 UN and non-UN agencies, could be harnessed to match country needs and agency-specific expertise while working under a common mandate.
UN Country Teams should continue to be the loci of UN-coordinated action at the country level, which can be integrated with the work of relevant sectors.
But given the nature of the crisis, informal, needs-based and adaptive partnerships will continue to be critical to ensuring each country can maintain essential services throughout the pandemic response, whatever the epidemiological burden.
I urge you to utilize this forum to focus on several pressing needs.
First, making full use of WHO guidance on maintaining essential health services.
WHO’s operational guidance, which was first published in March, and then updated in June, recommends a range of practical actions that can be taken at the national, subnational and local levels to reorganize and safely maintain access to high-quality essential services.
To carry out these actions efficiently, Member State needs and partner capacity must be more closely aligned, with all stakeholders having a firm understanding of where they can best be of service.
Time is of the essence, and I urge you to grasp this opportunity.
Second, developing solutions to address supply chain barriers, which is especially important with regard to securing medicines and other essential supplies.
Access to essential medicines remains a key part of the Region’s Flagship Priority on achieving universal health coverage, which we must continue to pursue.
The solutions you devise to the current crisis will help deal with the next.
Third, funding. Thus far, GAVI, Global Fund and DFiD have provided critical funding to support WHO’s programmatic and area-specific work to expand health service coverage.
To enable ongoing health system strengthening – especially at the primary level, and with a focus on the health workforce – multi-year funding is needed.
Amid the great uncertainty caused by the pandemic, funding that is reliable and which can be applied beyond the immediate response will help ensure that the Region stays on course to achieve its long-term targets and goals.
Fourth, we must seize the opportunity to promote context-specific interventions to maintain essential services.
As I emphasized at the beginning of my remarks, Member States share many challenges and constraints, strengths and opportunities, making intra-regional learning particularly valuable.
There can be no substitute for the on-the-ground experience that each of you bring to the table, and I look forward to your input and engagement on this crucial area of the response.
Member State representatives, partners and friends,
I thank you for the remarkable support you have provided to date and look forward to your ongoing commitment to minimizing the direct and indirect impact of COVID-19.
Strengthening and maintaining essential health services has been one of the Region’s core priorities from the very beginning of the pandemic, and will continue to be a key area of focus.
We must do all we can to protect and promote the health and well-being of the Region’s near 2 billion people, and with it the sustainable development of more than a quarter of the world’s population.
Our challenge is indeed immense, but I am certain that together we can ensure that all people can access the services they need to stay healthy and productive throughout the pandemic and beyond.
I look forward to coming presentations and discussions and once again thank you for your support.