Honourable Isaia Vaipuna Taape, Minister of Health of Tuvalu and Vice-Chair of the 72nd Regional Committee outgoing chair,
The incoming chair, Honourable Bounfeng Phoummalaysith, Minister of Health, Lao People's Democratic Republic.
Honourable ministers and heads of delegation,
Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
Good afternoon to all of you, it’s a real pleasure to be back in Manila, to be able to meet face-to-face once again.
As I said at the Special Session this morning, I know this has been a difficult time for Member States and the staff of the Regional Office.
I thank Deputy Director-General Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab for her leadership as Officer in Charge, and the staff of the Regional Office, for continuing to take forward the work of the region during this difficult period.
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When I addressed you virtually last year, I said that I hoped it would be possible to meet face-to-face this year.
And here we are.
The fact that we are once again able to meet in person is testament to how far you have all come in the fight against COVID-19.
It’s pleasing to see that reported cases and deaths in the region are now declining, after several Member States experienced surges this year.
As a region you have demonstrated great resilience in the face of this pandemic.
The “muscle memory” you gained from your experience with SARS, MERS, H5N1, H1N1, and other outbreaks has helped many Member States in this region to prepare and respond well.
It’s very pleasing to see that more than 80% of older people in the region are now fully vaccinated – the highest rate of any region in the world.
As I have said over the past few weeks, we have never been in a better position to end the COVID-19 pandemic as a global health emergency.
After more than two-and-a-half years in a long, dark tunnel, we are just beginning to glimpse the light at the end.
But we’re not at the end yet. We are still in the tunnel, and there are many obstacles that can trip us up if we don’t tread carefully.
We continue to urge all Member States to prioritise the vaccination of all health workers, and all older people, on the way to achieving the target of 70% coverage in all countries.
Likewise, we urge all Member States to expand access to life-saving antivirals, and to increase surveillance, testing and sequencing, to enable us to understand how this virus is evolving.
WHO has recently published a set of six short policy briefs, which outline the essential actions all countries can take to reduce transmission and save lives.
We urge you to use these briefs to reassess and readjust your policies to protect those most at risk, treat those who need it, and save lives.
The pandemic is always evolving, and so must the response, in every country.
And even as we continue to respond to COVID-19, we must maintain momentum on building a stronger architecture for health emergencies.
As you know, Member States are now negotiating a new, legally binding international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.
I am glad to see Colin, who has been chairing the working group for a long time. You must be tired now.
I urge Member States of this region to engage actively in these negotiations. It is in your own interests to make sure that the final instrument reflects your circumstances and needs, as individual Member States and as a region.
This instrument is a vital part of the new health emergency architecture, but by no means the only part.
A new Financial Intermediary Fund for Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response has now been established at the World Bank, with WHO providing technical leadership, chairing the technical advisory panel.
We urge all Member States to invest in the fund to support catalytic and gap-filling financing to implement the core capacities of the International Health Regulations.
Meanwhile, a new peer-review mechanism to evaluate country preparedness is now being piloted, the Universal Health and Preparedness Review.
So far, no Member States from this region are participating in the pilot phase, and I encourage you to do so. I would be happy if a few of you could apply today, and I will have something to take back to Geneva.
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Excellencies,
I thank you all for putting your trust in me to serve you as Director-General for another five years.
At the World Health Assembly in May, I outlined five priorities for the next five years, as we work together to recover from the setbacks of the pandemic, and drive progress towards the “triple billion” targets and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Promoting health;
Providing health;
Protecting health;
Powering health;
And performing for health.
The five Ps.
It’s important to underline that these “five Ps” do not replace the 13th General Programme of Work or the “triple billion” targets.
They are more about how together we will reach those targets, which are part of the Sustainable Development Goals.
The five priorities have much synergy with your agenda this week, and with the “For the Future” vision for the region.
Allow me to discuss each one briefly.
First, promoting health.
Realising our vision for the highest attainable standard of health starts not in the clinic or the hospital, but in schools, streets, supermarkets, households and cities, and especially in our homes.
Pacific Island Ministers were saying exactly the same thing: How can we help our kids be healthy? And that starts from schools, but what we do in schools can also get into our homes, into the family, which is true.
Much of the work that you do as Ministers of Health is dealing with the consequences of unhealthy diets, polluted environments, unsafe roads and workplaces, inadequate health literacy, and the aggressive marketing of products that harm health.
That’s why we are calling on all Member States to make an urgent paradigm shift towards promoting health and well-being and preventing disease, by addressing its root causes and creating the conditions for health to thrive.
That should be the way.
The regional action framework on noncommunicable diseases that you are considering this week can only succeed if Member States address the risk factors that drive the incidence and prevalence of NCDs.
That includes the climate crisis, fuelled by our addiction to fossil fuels, which is making weather-related disasters more frequent and more extreme, and threatening the very existence of many small island states in the Pacific.
When I visited Tuvalu in 2019, I met a young boy, 13 years old and he told me that with his friends, they discussed about the fate of their island, and their discussion is, if Tuvalu sinks, what do we do? And then some of them say, we sink with Tuvalu and others say no, we migrate to Fiji or whatever.
I was really, really sad. Children should be children. Imagine children discussing about this. You know this is a nightmare, not knowing even what to do but since this is a serious issue for Tuvalu and for other related islands, they're in that trap of discussion and they express their feelings like others.
But for them, that urge is to play, to have fun, to learn. It's not really to worry about sinking with an island. But I hope it won't, and these kids will live in a country they belong to. But the world needs to be serious for that to happen.
And from WHO's side we will do our best and we will work with you closely.
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The second priority is providing health, by reorienting health systems towards primary health care as the foundation of universal health coverage.
We know that 90% of essential health services can be delivered at the primary health care level.
I am heartened to see that this week you are considering regional action frameworks for primary health care, cervical cancer, mental health and reaching the unreached.
After all, it’s not universal health coverage if it’s not universal.
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The third priority is protecting health, by strengthening the global architecture for health emergency preparedness, response and resilience.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed significant vulnerabilities in the world’s defences against epidemics and pandemics.
In May, the Secretariat published a White Paper with 10 key proposals for stronger governance, strong financing, and stronger systems and tools for global health security.
Several of these proposals are already being acted on, as I described earlier.
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The fourth priority is powering health, by harnessing science, research, innovation, data, and digital technologies.
Advances in science and research are constantly pushing back the boundaries of the unknown and the impossible, increasing our understanding, and opening new possibilities.
Innovations in health products and service delivery give us hope of overcoming challenges that once seemed insurmountable.
Developments in big data and machine learning are helping us to see who is being left behind, where the biggest gaps are, and to track progress against our targets.
And digital technologies offer huge potential for delivering health services in new ways, to more people, especially in hard-to-reach areas.
To pick up the pace towards the “triple billion” targets and the Sustainable Develoment Goals, we must pick up the pace and scale at which science, research, innovations and digital technologies are adopted and implemented.
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Finally, the fifth priority is performing and partnering for health, by building a stronger WHO that delivers results, and is reinforced to play its leading role.
The pandemic has demonstrated not only why the world needs WHO, but why the world needs a stronger, empowered and sustainably financed WHO.
I thank all Member States for the historic commitment you made at this year’s World Health Assembly to gradually increase assessed contributions to 50% of the base budget over the next decade.
This will give us independence. This will help us to focus on major priorities.
This commitment will transform the Secretariat’s ability to deliver results where it matters most – in the lives of the people we all serve.
Maintaining momentum is vital, as the first step towards sustainability comes with the proposed 20% increase on assessed contributions in the 2024-25 budget.
As you know, even before the pandemic, we had already made major improvements in effectiveness and efficiency as part of our transformation.
Building on the lessons of the pandemic, we are committed to continuing that journey, and to making WHO even more effective and efficient.
In particular, our focus in the coming years is to significantly strengthen our country offices to support greater country capacity and greater country ownership – especially by strengthening the health workforce of every Member State.
The WHO Academy will play a vital role in achieving that.
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Excellencies, colleagues and friends,
Your agenda this week reflects the wide range of challenges you face as a region.
I give you my commitment that your WHO will continue to support you, through our country and regional offices, and at headquarters, to promote, provide, protect, power and perform for health.
One of the reasons I like coming to the WPRO Regional Committee meeting is that every time I come, I get to celebrate another country eliminating another disease.
The first time I came to the Regional Committee, in 2017, I had the honour of celebrating the elimination of trachoma in Cambodia and the Lao People’s Democratic Republic.
In 2018 I was here once again to confirm Palau, Viet Nam, and Wallis and Futuna for the elimination of lymphatic filariasis.
Today, I am delighted to be back to congratulate Vanuatu on becoming the first country in the Pacific to eliminate trachoma.
In fact, this is the second neglected tropical disease Vanuatu has eliminated, after lymphatic filariasis in 2016. So well done, Vanuatu.
Diseases don’t eliminate themselves. Eliminating a disease from an archipelago of 83 islands is an outstanding achievement that has only been possible thanks to the determination of the government, with support from WHO and many other partners.
Vanuatu’s success underscores the comprehensive nature of WHO’s SAFE strategy for trachoma elimination: Surgery; Antibiotics; Facial cleanliness; and Environmental improvement.
We urge other Member States in the Region that struggle with trachoma to follow Vanuatu’s example in adopting the SAFE strategy.
Thank you all once again to all Member States for your continued commitment to serving your people, and to working for a healthier, safer, fairer world.
I thank you.
Thank you very much. Salamat.