News: Advocacy action

The following statement—from Global Health Council (GHC) supported by the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC), the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), and Management Sciences for Health (MSH)—was delivered at the 72nd World Health Assembly on agenda item 11.2: Public health emergencies: preparedness and response.GHC supported by GHTC, IDSA and MSH, applaud efforts to strengthen capacities to prepare for and respond to health emergencies. As organizations working on the front lines of infectious disease responses and R&D, we urge states to continue building capacities to detect, prevent and respond to health threats.We are concerned that emergency preparedness and response capacities in most countries remain inadequate. It takes only 36 hours for a dangerous pathogen to travel from a rural village to any major city in the world. Investments in preparedness including financing to stop outbreaks at their source should be a priority. States must prioritize development of vaccines, therapeutics, rapid diagnostics, medical countermeasures and other lifesaving tools to prevent the next outbreak from growing into a pandemic.The DRC Ebola outbreak highlights the urgent need to strengthen response capacities in conflict-affected and fragile settings. More investments in health systems strengthening, greater community engagement and culturally appropriate interventions are needed immediately, along with continued collaboration for supporting the advancement of Ebola vaccine candidates and mobilizing additional tools, such as mobile labs for rapid sampling.We encourage WHO to highlight the success of efforts to harmonize regulatory systems across regional economic communities globally and call on all stakeholders to strengthen global regulatory capacity. We request WHO to consider platform diagnostics for emerging infectious diseases as the SAGE works to expand the Essential Diagnostics List. We urge WHO to include efforts to prevent AMR in emergency preparedness and IHR-strengthening activities. Resource-limited countries bear a disproportionate burden of deaths from resistant infections. WHO must help countries strengthen antibiotic stewardship capacities while working to improve preparedness and response.

GHTC delivered the following statement, on the 72nd World Health Assembly (WHA) agenda item 11.7, access to vaccines and medicines, on May 6, 2019 at the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) WHA stakeholder listening session: GHTC observes that supporting access to new technologies is complex, and failures to achieve widespread access to health technologies in low-resource settings are rarely due to a single issue. Barriers to access are best overcome when approached holistically, over the long-term, addressing affordability, availability, acceptability, and sustainability. Through its roadmap, the World Health Organization (WHO) has sought to create a broad framework to address the challenges and concerns around access to medicines.We encourage the US delegation to support a comprehensive approach to addressing barriers to accessing essential health technologies. Over recent years, significant progress in addressing regulatory barriers to access has been made, and WHO intends to continue building on their work in this area. Sound regulatory support for access to medicines ensures both timely access to medicines, as well as appropriate safety guidelines and pharmacovigilance activities. Technical standards and assistance supporting systems in achieving these targets have historically been viewed as falling within WHO’s core technical mandate. We also urge the US delegation to support the expansion of the Essential Diagnostic List. Diagnostic tests are critical tools for health care, providing vital information that impacts the prevention, detection, diagnosis, treatment, management of disease, surveillance and epidemiology. We strongly support WHO’s goal of increasing access to appropriate, affordable, quality-assured and effective diagnostics in underserved regions of the world.