AS HE CONVENES FORUM ON ADVANCING GLOBAL HEALTH IN FACE OF CRISIS

WHO Head Warns World ‘Dangerously Out of Balance’ in Health Matters;

Panels: Protection for Vulnerable; Building Resilient Systems; Enhancing Coherence

“We need to heed the call of our conscience, recognize that our interests are bound together, and act ‑‑ united ‑‑ with the urgency the times demand,” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today, as he opened a day-long forum on global health, in which representatives of Governments, United Nations agencies, the private sector and civil society explored ways to improve national health systems and maximize the impact of global health interventions.

In opening remarks to the forum ‑‑ entitled “Advancing global health in the face of crisis” ‑‑ he said the declaration of the first influenza pandemic in over 40 years was a reminder of our global vulnerability and the need for a global response.  (Issued separately as Press Release SG/SM/12309-DEV/2742.)

“We cannot protect ourselves by working in isolation,” he said.  “This is as true for the recent outbreak as it is for the long-standing health challenges we face”.  From poor maternal health and weak health systems to the H1N1 flu, the current situation demanded strengthened efforts in mobilizing constituencies, coordinating action and prioritizing health issues that remained relatively orphaned.

The cost of cutting back was unthinkable, he said.  Investments to scale up basic health services could bring a six-fold economic return:  healthy people had improved life expectancy, went to school and were more productive.  Across sub-Saharan Africa, controlling river blindness cost less than $1 per person, but delivered some $3.7 billion in productivity.  In Ghana, United Republic of Tanzania and Uganda, studies had shown that each dollar invested in contraceptive services could save up to $4 in antenatal, maternal and newborn health-care spending.  Such impressive numbers did not even begin to measure the value of lives saved.

He said he was most troubled by the costs of failed maternal and child health.  The global impact of maternal and newborn deaths was an estimated $15 billion a year in lost productivity.  Birth too often brought mourning when mothers and newborns died from a lack of care ‑‑ one every minute, which translated into over half a million tragedies each year, nearly all preventable.

Some progress had been achieved, he said.  Official development assistance for health had tripled in the last six years, while new instruments ‑‑ like the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization ‑‑ had shown that funds for health could be raised and disbursed in innovative ways.  But, the needs were greater and growing:  an estimated 50 to 90 million people in developing countries would move into absolute poverty this year alone.

“We have to move quickly,” he said.  Decisions made in the coming months would be critical to sustaining gains.  With $60 billion already pledged to fight disease and strengthen health, he said honouring past commitments was ultimately political.  But, sustainability was not just about securing predictable financial resources.  It was about using opportunities provided by disease programmes to deliver health benefits.  It was about training, drawing on the private sector and strengthening the untapped capacity of communities.  Countless lives hung in the balance.

Echoing that call, Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, said the world was dangerously out of balance in matters of health.  Differences within and between countries in income, opportunity and health status were greater today than at any time in recent history.  While part of the world fed itself into obesity, the other part starved.  While some lived into old age, others died from preventable causes.  Such huge extremes were a precursor for social breakdown.

On top of that, she said the level of preparedness towards the current influenza pandemic was strongly biased towards wealthy countries.  Many poor countries, where non-pharmaceutical measures had limited relevance, had been left empty-handed.  She asked how, in sub-Saharan Africa, for example, home quarantine could be practised in the extended family, how social distancing could exist in a bustling market, or how hand hygiene could be expected in areas where millions lacked access to clean water and sanitation.  The pressures of a pandemic, coupled with such crises and chronic disease, could cripple fragile health systems.

Transformational changes in policies that governed international relations were needed, she stressed.  The Millennium Development Goals aimed to compensate for an international systems that had no rules for guaranteeing the fair distribution of benefits and provided the best chance to introduce greater fairness into the world ‑‑ but they did not address the root causes of inequity:  those that resided in flawed policies.  The financial crisis had ushered in a period of great soul-searching and leaders at the recent Group of 20 summit in London called for redesigning international systems to include a moral dimension.

She said a focus on health was the surest route to achieving that dimension and creating a value system that placed humanity’s welfare at its heart.  The market alone did not solve social problems.  Public health, supported by evidence-based social policies could contribute.

The day also featured three panel discussions on protecting vulnerable populations, building resilient health systems and enhancing coherence.

Ann M. Veneman, Executive Director, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), moderated a panel discussion on “Protecting vulnerable populations”, involving Lesogo Motsumi, Minister of Health, Botswana; David Nabarro, Senior United Nations System Coordinator for Avian and Human Influenza; Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, Executive Director, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA); K. Srinath Reddy, President, Public Health Foundation of India; Sam Zaramba, Director-General of Health Services, Ministry of Health of Uganda; Rajeev Venkayya, Director of Global Health Delivery, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; and Liya Kebede, the Liya Kebede Foundation.

The second panel discussion ‑‑ “Building resilient health systems: strengthening delivery from global to local” ‑‑ was moderated by Julio Frenk, Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health and former Health Minister of Mexico.  It featured presentations by Richard Sezibera, Minister of Health of Rwanda; Ivan Lewis, Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, United Kingdom; Joy Phumaphi, Vice-President, Human Development Network, World Bank; David de Ferranti, President, Results for Development Institute; and Ariel Pablos-Méndez, Managing Director, Rockefeller Foundation.

The third panel, on “Enhancing coherence:  toward multi-stakeholder strategic partnerships” was moderated by Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).  The panellists were:  Aaron Motsoaledi, Minister of Health of South Africa; Michel Kazatchkine, Executive Director, the Global Fund; Ray Chambers, Special Envoy for Malaria; Julian Lob-Levyt, Executive Secretary, GAVI Alliance; Michael Joseph, CEO, Safaricom; and Tore Godal, Special Adviser to the Prime Minister of Norway on Global Health.