Vietnam Proactively, Actively Contribute to Efforts to Promote Global Health Care

At a UN General Assembly session. Photo: VNA

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on February 24 adopted two resolutions on the organisation of the High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response and the High-Level Meeting on the Fight Against Tuberculosis, which are expected to be held during the High-Level Week of the UNGA’s 78th session in September, VNA reported.

The High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response aims to draw lessons and experiences from around the world in the fight against Covid-19, thus promoting a multidimensional approach to enhancing prevention and response to future pandemics.

Meanwhile, the High-Level Meeting on the Fight Against Tuberculosis will look to mobilise political will and strengthen measures to promote scientific research, financing, and innovation toward quickly ending the global tuberculosis epidemic by ensuring equal access to preventive, diagnostic, care, and treatment methods.

Chairing the drafting of the UNGA resolution on International Day of Epidemic Preparedness in 2020 and proposing the resolution on organising the High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response in 2022, Vietnam has actively partnered with other major countries to lead the negotiation process to secure the adoption of the two above-mentioned resolutions.

Ambassador Dang Hoang Giang, Permanent Representative of Vietnam to the UN and officials. Photo: VNA

During the negotiation process, Vietnam emphasised and successfully protected the important contents of the resolutions, such as the need to ensure coherence and complementarity between major health processes discussed in relevant multilateral forums, narrowing the gap in financing, the necessity of strengthening the prevention and response to future pandemics by sharing lessons and experiences from the fight against Covid-19; the importance of ensuring timely, equitable, and unimpeded access to vaccines, diagnosis, treatment as well as strengthening healthcare systems and resilience to achieve universal health coverage for all people.

In the near future, Vietnam will continue actively engaging in the negotiation of political declarations of the above-mentioned meetings to further contribute to the common efforts of the international community in pandemic preparedness and response, and ending the global tuberculosis epidemic as soon as possible.

As a responsible member in the international community, Vietnam has also actively donated face masks and medical supplies to many other countries in the early stages of the pandemic, contributed to the Covid-19 response fund of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the COVAX Facility, and proposed many initiatives at regional and international forums to promote international solidarity and cooperation in response to the pandemic.

As the chair of the drafting of the UNGA Resolution 75/27, dated December 7, 2020, on the International Day of Epidemic Preparedness (December 27), Vietnam has been working actively with other countries to promote talks on measures for effectively improving the global healthcare system and to increase the sharing of lessons from the pandemic and good practices, thereby helping improve awareness and action to gear up for future epidemics, according to the diplomat.

The core group in organising the UNGA high-level session on epidemic preparedness and response, was set up as recommended by the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, established by the WHO Director-General, with a view to reviewing the lessons from Covid-19 response so as to better prepare for future pandemics.