As the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated, every country is vulnerable to epidemics and emergencies. One of WHO’s main goals is to strengthen the resilience of communities and countries through UHC as the foundation for health emergency management.
Since 2005, WHO and its Member States have established a new version of the International Health Regulations (IHR) in order to capitalize on the lessons learned after the response to the 2003 SARS epidemic. This agreement, in force to date, has been ratified by 196 countries, including all WHO Member States, to work together for global health security. It aims to strengthen international regulations in times of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern and basic health system functions in countries, such as early detection, risk assessment, information sharing, and rapid response to avoid illness, injury, death and economic losses on a large scale. As such, health security is increasingly a focus of the UHC Partnership, as the world is only as safe as its most vulnerable setting.
“Universal Health Coverage is not just the best investment in healthier populations. It is also the best investment in health security. Strong health systems are better able to prevent, detect and mitigate outbreaks.”
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
The COVID-19 pandemic context
Since the start of the pandemic, the WHO Director-General and Global Policy Group, comprising regional directors and senior leadership, have led the strategic global public health response to COVID-19. Through the UHC Partnership, WHO supported Member States for health emergency preparedness in low- and middle-income countries that are most at risk, with weaker health systems. In 2020, the technical assistance provided by the UHC Partnership played a key role in supporting Member States in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic by supporting the development, costing and implementation of strategic preparedness and response plans. The action is designed to build and maintain sustainable country capacities to prevent, detect and respond to future public health risks, and to address country gaps and needs through implementation of national action plans for health security (NAPHS). In addition, activities aimed to link NAPHS to national health sector strategic plans and to COVID-19 strategic preparedness and response plans.
NAPHS were introduced to help countries identify gaps related to 19 technical areas that should be prioritized for sustainable preparedness and to remedy them. These plans were established to reinforce health systems but also to work through multisectoral interventions. In the three years since NAPHS was introduced, 69 countries have created a plan.
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