Your excellency Mr Volkan Bozhir, President of the UN General Assembly,
Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
This year, COVID-19 has captured the world's attention, and rightly so.
Antimicrobial resistance doesn’t usually capture headlines in the same way, but it should.
AMR threatens to unwind a century of medical progress, and send us back to the pre-antibiotic era, when routine infections could mean death.
This global threat is the result of systems failing across and between sectors around the world.
It cannot be addressed by one sector or one nation alone.
That is why the Tripartite - composed of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Organization for Animal Health, and WHO – was formed several years ago, to work together on a One Health approach that encompasses the health of humans, animals, and our planet.
The main drivers of antimicrobial resistance are the misuse and overuse of antimicrobials for human, animal and plant health.
COVID-19 has demonstrated the devastating impact on health, societies and economies of a microbe for which we have no treatments or vaccines.
Unless we take urgent action to stop it, antimicrobial resistance will leave us defenceless against a whole host of microbes.
As countries recover and rebuild from COVID-19, we are urging them to invest in resilient health systems, based on strong primary health care, as the best defense against emergencies of all kinds – from an outbreak of a new and deadly virus to the slow and deadly spread of antimicrobial resistance.
Effective prevention and treatment of infections is a critical function of strong health systems, which in turn are the foundation of universal health coverage.
We also need to ensure that antimicrobial resistance remains a political priority.
Last month, we launched the One Health Global Leaders Group on Antimicrobial Resistance, which will play an essential role in advocating for urgent action to combat the threat of AMR.
The group is co-chaired by Her Excellency Mia Mottley, Prime Minister of Barbados, and Her Excellency Sheik Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh. We appreciate their support and leadership.
The group is comprised of heads of state, ministers, CEOs, and leaders of civil society organizations, who have committed to responding to the global AMR crisis with a multi-sectoral One Health approach.
We expect the Global Leaders Group to build political momentum across the One Health spectrum, support the integration of AMR in post-COVID-19 plans, and establish partnerships with the public and private sectors.
We also encourage renewed discussion of this urgent global health threat by the General Assembly, as requested by the Political Declaration of the High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage adopted last year.
It is critical that we increase financial investment on antimicrobial resistance across the One Health spectrum, both for the implementation of national action plans and for research and development.
Antimicrobial resistance is fundamentally the result of a failure of coordination. It is what happens when systems break down.
Tackling this existential threat requires focused political leadership, multi-sectoral cooperation, and international solidarity.
The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that in the face of an unprecedented crisis, the world can come together in new ways to confront it.
It’s vital that together we harness the same urgency, the same innovation, and the same solidarity to confront antimicrobial resistance.
I thank you.