World leaders renewed their political commitment to scaling up the global effort to build a healthier world for all, called for the conclusion of negotiations on a formal agreement on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response by May 2024, and called for a new and more effective vaccine to end tuberculosis.

The High-level Week of the 78th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) featured three high-level meetings on health, addressing: universal health coverage (UHC); pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response; and tuberculosis. The meetings resulted in three high-level political declarations.

UHC: A UN news story highlights that today, more than 4.5 billion people worldwide lack coverage for essential health services, and over two billion experience severe financial hardships when paying out-of-pocket for necessary medical treatment. “This is a human rights tragedy on a massive scale,” said Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohamed, speaking on behalf of UN Secretary-General António Guterres at the opening of the high-level meeting on UHC. She called for a massive scale-up in investments and additional support for developing countries.

The high-level meeting on UHC on 21 September 2023 approved a political declaration titled, ‘Universal Health Coverage: Expanding our ambition for health and well-being in a post-COVID world.’ In it, Heads of State and Government and representatives of States and Governments reaffirm the right of every human being to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. They also reaffirm health as a precondition for and indicator of the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and recognize UHC as fundamental for achieving the SDGs.

The declaration identifies challenges to accelerating progress towards the achievement of UHC by 2030, including the financing gap, and commits leaders to, inter alia:

• Strengthen national efforts, international cooperation, and global solidarity to accelerate the achievement of UHC by 2030;
• Strengthen legislative and regulatory frameworks, promote policy coherence, and ensure sustainable and adequate financing to implement high-impact policies;
• Ensure no one is left behind, aiming to reach the furthest behind first; and
• Strengthen national health plans and policies based on a primary health care approach to support the provision of health services with financial protection for all.

Pandemics: Addressing the high-level meeting on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response on 20 September, Mohammed identified three key areas for multilateral action to prepare for the next pandemic: supporting the SDG Stimulus; addressing misinformation; and responding to complex global shocks.

The political declaration approved by the high-level meeting on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response issues a call to action in the areas of equity, global governance, leadership and accountability, overarching health-related issues, financing and investments, and follow-up. It urges States to address the negative physical and mental health impacts of health-related misinformation, disinformation, hate speech and stigmatization, especially on social media platforms, and calls for public information campaigns to be based on science and facts. The declaration commits Member States to strengthening health workforces and rapid response capacities, surveillance, and local manufacturing abilities, so countries can meet their own needs to prevent, prepare for, and respond to pandemics.

World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus welcomed the Declaration, saying it represents “a historic milestone in the urgent drive to make all people of the world safer, and better protected from the devastating impacts of pandemics.”

Tuberculosis: The high-level meeting on the fight against tuberculosis on 22 September focused on the theme, ‘Advancing science, finance and innovation, and their benefits, to urgently end the global tuberculosis epidemic, in particular by ensuring equitable access to prevention, testing, treatment and care.’ Member States approved a political declaration reaffirming their collective commitment to end tuberculosis by 2030. [UN Meetings Coverage: High-level Meeting on UHC] [UN News Story on UHC] [UN Meetings Coverage: High-level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness, Response] [UN News Story on Pandemics] [UN Meetings Coverage: High-level Meeting on the Fight Against Tuberculosis] [UN News Story on Ending Tuberculosis]