Momen for devising global health strategy to deal with future pandemics

Foreign Minister AK Abdul Momen stressed on devising a global health strategy that will prepare the world better for any future pandemic. 

He underscored the need to create a playbook where the countries will be ready to respond immediately to future health threats. 

The minister said these while speaking at the opening session of the COVID-19 Global Action Plan (GAP) Ministerial held in New York on Friday (23 September), reads a press release.

Bangladesh Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares Bueno and Botswana Foreign Minister Dr Lemogang Kwape jointly convened the ministerial, aiming at bringing together partners to maintain and strengthen political will to address COVID-19 challenges. 

Foreign ministers from several countries, including from Japan, Saudi Arabia and Thailand, and director general of WHO participated in the meeting. High level delegates from a number of countries, including France, Indonesia, Germany, UK, India, Norway, Italy, and South Korea also joined. 

Momen highlighted that under the visionary leadership of the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh was a standout success in COVID-19 response. 

He said that Bangladesh was open to share its COVID-19 management experience, which had been centered around saving lives, supporting livelihoods- especially of the most vulnerable ones, and posting quick economic recovery.  

Stressing further on the global partnership and concerted efforts, the foreign minister lauded the multilateral processes, including initiatives like ACT-A and COVAX under WHO that played important role in making vaccines and other COVID materials available. 

However, he reminded that the pandemic was not over yet, and vaccination needed to continue. 

To this effect, Momen reiterated that vaccines should be declared global public goods and distributed without discrimination.

He also emphasised on the need of sustained and significant injection of fund for capacity-building of health sector, especially in lower income countries and welcomed the formation of the financial intermediary fund at the World Bank to complement investments in prevention, preparedness and response (PPR).

A joint statement was issued at the end of the ministerial with concrete recommendations and ways forward. It highlighted the state of the global response to COVID-19 in line with six core lines of efforts and the role of foreign ministries to enhance political will and coordination. 

The joint statement underscored the importance of enhanced coordination among GAP partners to fill remaining gaps in the pandemic response, and build better health security to prevent, prepare for, and respond to future health threats.