The European Union brings to the table solutions to protect citizens from public health threats on a global scale, emphasized Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakidou, presenting the new Global Health Strategy of the European Union together with the High Representative Josep Borel and the Commissioner of International Corporate Relations Juta Urpilainen.
“Health is the basis of well-being for our citizens and necessary for the stability of our economies and societies. The pandemic was a powerful reminder of how many global connections there are in the health sector,” Ms. Kyriakidou noted.
As he said, with the Global Health Strategy the EU builds on the lessons learned from the pandemic and implements policies “to protect citizens on a global scale”.
“We will do this by working towards better detection of threats, new rules for their effective management, more equal access to vaccines and treatments, and towards a more resilient global governance for guaranteed results, with a strong and accountable World Health Organization at the center,” he added.
< p>“We embrace our duty to take the lead in strengthening health standards globally,” he underlined.
According to a statement, the Global Health Strategy places health at the heart of the EU's foreign policy, promoting sustainable and meaningful relations between equals by making use of the EU's Global Gateway policy.
More specifically, the strategy consists of three global health priorities: Ensuring better health and well-being for people throughout their lives, strengthening health systems and promoting universal health coverage, and preventing and combating threats to health such as pandemics through a coherent unified approach to health issues.
Among the goals is to close the gaps in the achievement of the United Nations Global Development Goals for 2030, including by promoting universal health coverage, strengthening health care and addressing the deepest threats to health such as poverty and social inequalities, but also climate change and environmental degradation.
As noted, the strategy focuses on three factors that will enhance the improvement of global health: digitization, research and existence of a skilled workforce.
More broadly in terms of improving health security and protection against threats, the Global Strategy recommends a series of actions for more equitable access to vaccines and treatments by strengthening local pharmaceutical systems and production capabilities, to promoting strong and binding international regulations for pandemics, better surveillance and detection of pathogens, and an approach that capitalizes on the interconnections between the environment, animal and plant health, and human health.
Finally, the global governance strategy on health envisages strengthening the WHO and deepening cooperation through the G7, G20 and other regional and global organisations, expanding the EU's international agreements on health issues through the Global Gateway programmes, leveraging the comparative size and advantage of “Team Europe “, that is, of the EU and the member states, in the international arena, and t all the promotion of new ways of financing and joint international investments.
