Minister of Public Health H E Dr. Hanan Mohammed Al Kuwari participating in the event in preparation for the high-level meeting on universal health coverage.
Doha: The State of Qatar participated in a virtual event held on the sidelines of 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly on the Road to 2023: Kickoff to the high-level meeting on universal health coverage.
Qatar was represented in the meeting by Minister of Public Health H E Dr. Hanan Mohammed Al Kuwari.
She made a statement on behalf of the Group of Friends of Solidarity for Global Health Security, which consists of 48 countries, including Qatar. The group is jointly headed by the permanent delegation of the State of Qatar to the United Nations.
The Minister said that COVID-19 is not just a health crisis, but a pandemic that revealed a number of social and economic issues of this ages, and created many challenges in realising the sustainable development goals. She added that this in turn presented a threat to international peace and security, and leads to social turmoil that also undermines the ability to combat the pandemic to a large extent.
She referred to the initiative of Qatar, South Korea, Canada, Denmark and Sierra Leone, in May 2020, to launch the Group of Friends of Solidarity for Global Health Security to serve as an informal platform for United Nations Member States to exchange views on the effective response to COVID-19 and other global health security challenges, through Multilateral cooperation.
The Minister stressed that the greatest challenge in that regard is the inequality of access to vaccines, testing, therapeutics, and necessary healthcare. She highlighted the importance of the high-level meeting and called for mobilising support to provide universal health coverage as part of the strategy to response and recover from COVID-19.
She reiterated Qatar’s pledge made in 2019 regarding universal health coverage, and accelerating the additional measures required to address the global health crisis, to ensure no one falls behind and to achieve the healthcare related goals in the Sustainable Development plan 2030.
It is worth noting that the State of Qatar attaches great importance to health security and universal health coverage in local policies and its international partnerships.
In addition to supporting the initiatives and programs of individual countries, Qatar, represented by the Qatar Fund for Development, signed an agreement with the World Health Organization (WHO) worth $10m as a contribution to support its Thirteenth General Programme of Work (GPW 13), accelerate access to essential supplies needed to combat COVID-19. This built on a previous donation of $10 million to WHO in support of its efforts to develop testing equipment, treatment and vaccines for COVID-19. Qatar Airways also signed an agreement with Unicef and COVAX to support logistics and deliver vaccines to all parts of the world.
