While the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in huge setbacks for health systems – it has also highlighted the needs. And one of the biggest is the need for greater investment in basic primary health care systems as a pathway for ensuring Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
Delegates speaking during a high-level strategic session on the third day of the 74th World Health Assembly, Wednesday, said that while there has been progress in some areas of primary health care, stronger policies, more public-private partnerships and more socially inclusive participation is needed.
WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus said member states are lagging in achieving the 2019 UN General Assembly’s goal of achieving Universal Health Coverage for everyone in the world by 2030. WHO has meanwhile set its own ambitious institutional target of ensuring that 1 billion more people get access to UHC by 2023 – as part of the Organizations “Triple Billion Targets” for its own five-year programme of work. There, too, countries fall far short of the mark.