The increasingly urgent goal is to guarantee access to anti-Covid vaccines for all countries in the world, especially the most fragile ones. This has not been the case so far, but today “the conditions are in place” to reach this goal. The G20 Health in Rome opened with a positive omen which, on the first day of work, laid down the foundations for a global agreement, renamed the “Rome Pact”, which will lead to global immunization as the health emergency “will not be exhausted until we are all out of it ».
Hope, Rome pact challenges to bring vaccine to even the most fragile countries
«There are the conditions – explained the Minister of Health Roberto Speranza – to build the Pact of Rome, which will guarantee vaccines even in the most fragile countries. Today there are very strong inequalities with the richest countries that now have very significant vaccination rates and continue to proceed, and there are countries that are lagging behind ». Hence the commitment of this Pact “on which we are working” and which is to “build conditions for which the vaccine is a right of all and not a privilege of a few and I think – the minister pointed out – that this is a challenge that all the countries present share ».
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Objective: shared statement
On this central point, the G20 ministers will continue to discuss also tomorrow, Monday 6 September, aiming to close with a declaration shared and signed by all. But the G20 Health will also take stock of the broader perspective of rebuilding post-pandemic care systems. The point, again clarified Speranza, is “to try to broaden the strength of our national health services, invest more in them and try to mark a very significant step change that allows us to defend the universality approach of the National Health Service. , that is, the idea that if a person is ill they must be treated regardless of their economic condition and the place where they were born or the color of their skin. The Rome Pact takes this point as an essential point ». In this context, the minister commented, the G20 is an opportunity “to strengthen international relations and relaunch the universal values of health“. Nodes of the comparison will be how to ensure the widest possible access to vaccines starting from existing collaboration mechanisms, including that of dose donations to meet the most immediate needs so that “no one is left behind”.
The need for comprehensive mental health action
But another critical issue linked to the pandemic was also discussed at the G20, namely the need for global action for mental health. The pandemic has in fact affected people’s mental health due to social isolation, loss of family members and uncertainty about the economic impact and the maintenance of jobs. The work focuses on many issues, divided into three parts. The first session is dedicated to the impact of Covid19 on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 Agenda. The second session will provide specific indications on what needs to be done to prevent and respond to the pandemics of the future, starting with how to achieve a better capacity of collaboration and coordination at an international level, always having the World Health Organization as its “pivot”. Finally, the third session will examine the “control tools” that are allowing us to effectively combat the pandemic and global strategies to support development and equal access to medicines and diagnostics. Furthermore, in the awareness that the latest health crises have had the main determining factor in the human-animal-environment relationship, one of the key responses that the G20 countries will suggest will be to strengthen the One Health approach, which encompasses human health in a holistic concept. , animal and environmental.