ISLAMABAD: The federal capital will host health authorities and international health organizations participating in the two-day “Global Health Security Summit 2024” on January 10 and 11, the National Health Service, Regulations and Coordination (NHS, R&C) said. .
Health authorities from at least 15 countries and health organizations have confirmed their participation in the first-of-its-kind summit chaired by Pakistan, The News reported on Saturday.
“As the Chair of the Global Health Security Agenda, Pakistan is hosting a Global Health Security Summit next week on January 10-11 to highlight the threats and challenges to global health security in the coming days and months. We have invited authorities from 30 countries and organizations. 15 of them have so far confirmed their participation in the summit,” a senior official of the Federal Ministry of Health told the publication.
The slogan of the summit was chosen to be “Together for a Healthy Planet”, with key thematic areas including the impact of global health security on national security, pandemic preparedness and response, climate change and emerging threats to public health, multi-sectoral coordination in the context of “One Health” and sustainable equity-based financing for global health security, the official said.
Access to the Universal Health Coverage/PHC platform to achieve SDG3 as well as vaccine equity, patent deregulation and transfer of vaccine manufacturing technology would also be discussed during the discussions, he added.
The official said the key strategic goals of the summit are to work with global leaders to ensure equity-based pandemic preparedness, financing for low- and middle-income countries, mutual knowledge exchange, as well as sharing experiences with member states and experts on the summit’s thematic topic. areas including vaccine equity, patent deregulation and technology transfer.
The conference also aims to secure global and regional partnerships with international organizations to align health security priorities with global and regional priorities to strengthen core capacities through technical assistance.
Another key focus of the discussions is to explore joint work and joint funding for health security and the International Health Regulations 2005 across the region and globally (Pandemic Fund — “One Health”), in addition to sustainable domestic funding over five years. health security plan 2024-28.
A future “Global Health Security Charter” will be signed to create a narrative for an equity-based pandemic treaty based on an equity-based global financial instrument based on a mutually agreed “Islamabad Declaration”.
This will be done to make health systems resilient enough to demonstrate health security by implementing a coordinated “One Health” response to any threat. Also become advocates and champions of the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) in participating member states, the health ministry official added.
Acting Federal Health Minister Dr Nadeem Jan told a group of journalists earlier on Wednesday that the summit was aimed at alerting the world to future pandemics and strengthening the collective capacity to prevent and respond to infectious disease threats such as Covid-19.
“After the threat of Covid-19 passed and the WHO declared that it was no longer a public health emergency, the entire world put global health security on the back burner. However, we in Pakistan strongly believe that being the chair of the Global Health Security Agenda, there is the urgent need to discuss global health security issues and take early action to prevent and address future pandemics,” the health minister told a group of journalists at the Department of National Health Services.
