EU Commission: new “Global Health Strategy”. Prevention, primary healthcare, universal health coverage

The Global Health Strategy, proposed by the EU Commission today, “seeks to regain the ground lost to reach the universal health-related targets in the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals”. To do so, the Strategy - the Commission says in a statement - “refocuses our action on achieving universal health coverage, strengthening primary healthcare, and tackling the root causes of ill health like poverty and social inequalities”. The Strategy stresses the importance of addressing “important drivers of ill health such as climate change and environmental degradation, food security, conflict, and other humanitarian crises”. Thus, the Strategy introduces a “health-in-all-policies” approach to ensure that “a wide variety of policies genuinely contribute to health goals”. It identifies three key enablers for better health, namely digitalisation, research, and “a skilled labour force with concrete actions to advance globally in these areas”. The Strategy also seeks to improve global health security, “thus protecting citizens from threats by stepping up prevention, preparedness and response, and early detection. These threats can be chemical, biological, or nuclear — or pandemics, including the silent killer that is antimicrobial resistance”. The Strategy suggests a wide variety of actions to address these threats: a more equitable access to vaccines and medical treatments; binding international rules on pandemics; and an overall approach that tackles all the links between the environment, animal/plant health, and human health (“One Health approach”).Gianni Borsa