Heads of State and global leaders came together this weekend at the G20 Leaders’ Summit held in Hamburg, Germany on 7–8 July 2017. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, led the WHO delegation participating in the G20 Summit. He met with heads of state and other high-level delegates to advocate for WHO priorities in global health. The 2017 G20 meeting for the first time included a comprehensive health track among its deliberations.
The G20 Leaders’ Declaration – “Shaping an interconnected world” highlighted the importance of combatting antimicrobial resistance (AMR) including tuberculosis (TB), within its section on “Building Resilience”. Specifically, TB was prioritized among other priority bacterial pathogens identified by WHO for which there is a critical need for fostering R&D.
There was a call for a new international R&D Collaboration Hub to maximize the impact of existing and new antimicrobial basic and clinical research initiatives as well as product development. The Declaration also supported WHO´s central coordinating role in global health and response to health emergencies.
“The commitment of the G20 Leaders Summit to combat TB and AMR is a groundbreaking achievement for the TB community. This is a result of united efforts by the TB community to raise the profile of the fight to end the top infectious killer to the highest level,” said Dr Mario Raviglione, Director of the WHO Global TB Programme.
“The potential of having new sources of financing for TB research towards new diagnostics, drugs and vaccines is a major accomplishment. As WHO, we will do everything possible to build on the G20 commitment and promote new investments, using also the opportunity of the Ministerial Conference on Ending TB in the Sustainable Development Era, which will be held in Moscow on 16-17 November. We look forward to further elevating the discussion at head-of-state level at the the First UN General Assembly High Level Meeting on TB in September 2018”.