COVID-19: On the eve of World Health Day, WHO immediately (April 6) known as for concerted and urgent efforts to bridge gaps accentuated by the COVID-19 pandemic and attaining well being for all by common well being protection. WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh mentioned the world well being physique is absolutely dedicated to attaining well being for all by common well being protection (UHC) and facilitating entry to important well being companies for all with out monetary hardship.
On the World Health Day, the World Health Organisation (WHO) celebrates 75 years of bettering public well being and well-being globally. For a long time, and even earlier than the 1978 Declaration of Alma-Ata, leaders and coverage makers from throughout the area have recognised the essential function that entry for all to high quality, inexpensive and complete major well being care (PHC) can play in attaining UHC and subsequently, well being for all, she mentioned.
This has been properly mirrored within the area’s renewed and decade-long push to obtain UHC, which since 2014 has been one among eight flagship priorities of the area, Singh mentioned. Between 2010 and 2019, the area elevated its UHC service protection index from 47 to 61, whereas between 2000 and 2017, the area diminished the variety of households impoverished or additional impoverished from out-of-pocket spending on well being from 30 to six per cent, the WHO official mentioned.
Since 2014, the density of medical doctors, nurses and midwives within the area has additionally improved by over 30 per cent. Singh mentioned 5 international locations of the area have achieved the sustainable improvement purpose targets for under-five and neonatal mortality. Between 2000 and 2020, the area achieved a 34 per cent decline in TB incidence charges, and by the tip of 2020, had met every of the worldwide technical technique for malaria milestones for mortality and morbidity.
Since 2016, six international locations of the area have eradicated at the very least one uncared for tropical illness and all international locations proceed to strengthen PHC companies to forestall, detect, management and deal with noncommunicable ailments, Singh mentioned.
Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh on well being companies:
“The region has many more mountains to climb. Today, in the shadow of the COVID-19 crisis, around 40 per cent of people in the region are unable to access essential health services,” she mentioned. “In 2017, around 299 million people in the region faced catastrophic health spending, and an estimated 117 million people in the region were pushed or further pushed below the purchasing power parity poverty line of USD 1.90 a day- a figure that has since been exacerbated,” Singh mentioned.
She mentioned as highlighted by the area’s 2021 technique for major well being care, in addition to the area’s imaginative and prescient to construct again higher from the COVID-19 pandemic, whole-of-government, whole-of-society motion is required to drive fast and sustained progress in the direction of UHC and well being for all.
High-level leaders ought to keep and strengthen political and monetary commitments to obtain UHC, accelerating momentum forward of the second UN General Assembly assembly on UHC in September this yr, the WHO official mentioned. The COVID-19 disaster has proven that investments in UHC and well being system resilience underpin not simply well being, however social and financial safety, in addition to the achievement of an array of SDGs, Singh mentioned.
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Policy makers and programme managers should proceed to implement the Region’s Strategy for PHC, she mentioned. Of particular focus ought to be strengthening public well being infrastructure, workforce and financing, whereas on the identical time growing fairness for these prone to or who’re already being left behind, she mentioned. Partners, donors and different stakeholders within the area should go all in on UHC and well being for all, recognising that the PHC strategy is the simplest, environment friendly and equitable approach to construct nationwide well being techniques which can be unified, and which obtain more healthy populations, well being safety and UHC, Singh mentioned.
In all international locations, policymakers should lead, and companions should assist, the WHO official mentioned. She mentioned help should be absolutely aligned with nationwide priorities, avoiding duplication and fragmentation.
(With PTI inputs)
