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The following statement—from Global Health Council (GHC), supported by Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC), PAI, Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF), Management Sciences for Health (MSH), Living Goods, Partners In Health (PIH), and RTI International—was delivered at the 72nd World Health on agenda item 11.5: Universal health coverage.GHC supported by GHTC, PAI, EGPAF, MSH, Living Goods, PIH and RTI International thank you for the opportunity to comment on the agenda item on UHC in preparation for the HLM.The SDGs call for achieving UHC, as well as for reducing maternal mortality; ending preventable deaths of newborns and children; and ending the epidemics of AIDS, TB, malaria and neglected tropical diseases. To ensure coherence among these goals, special efforts must be made to reach the most vulnerable populations. In addition, it is essential to have innovation and R&D elevated as a central pillar to achieving UHC.The Political Declaration should include language to strengthen health systems down to the community level by investing in R&D, health workers, and capacity building programs to ensure access to quality care for all. We urge the inclusion of measures to disaggregate data by age and gender in order to ensure all people are counted when measuring progress towards UHC and to set specific targets for those hardest to reach with essential health services, such as children and adolescents. We also call for a commitment for user fees to be avoided for essential services in countries where they can be prohibitively expensive. The prioritization of Primary Health Care is needed to achieve UHC and PHC must go beyond the facility level to the community and frontline health workforce teams. UHC plans should be developed to include capacity-building at the national level to promote a health workforce that can deliver essential health services for all ages. Special focus should be given to equipping community health workers with the appropriate training, tools, technology, salary and support to deliver UHC where people live. The achievement of the right to health through UHC is not solely the responsibility of Member States and requires the collective commitment and action of global duty bearers via international assistance and cooperation. We urge the establishment of a global pooled mechanism to fund the significant gap that exists between the horizon of what local governments can reasonably fund, and what is required for the achievement of UHC in LMICs.

The following statement—from Global Health Council (GHC) supported by the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC), the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), and Management Sciences for Health (MSH)—was delivered at the 72nd World Health Assembly on agenda item 11.2: Public health emergencies: preparedness and response.GHC supported by GHTC, IDSA and MSH, applaud efforts to strengthen capacities to prepare for and respond to health emergencies. As organizations working on the front lines of infectious disease responses and R&D, we urge states to continue building capacities to detect, prevent and respond to health threats.We are concerned that emergency preparedness and response capacities in most countries remain inadequate. It takes only 36 hours for a dangerous pathogen to travel from a rural village to any major city in the world. Investments in preparedness including financing to stop outbreaks at their source should be a priority. States must prioritize development of vaccines, therapeutics, rapid diagnostics, medical countermeasures and other lifesaving tools to prevent the next outbreak from growing into a pandemic.The DRC Ebola outbreak highlights the urgent need to strengthen response capacities in conflict-affected and fragile settings. More investments in health systems strengthening, greater community engagement and culturally appropriate interventions are needed immediately, along with continued collaboration for supporting the advancement of Ebola vaccine candidates and mobilizing additional tools, such as mobile labs for rapid sampling.We encourage WHO to highlight the success of efforts to harmonize regulatory systems across regional economic communities globally and call on all stakeholders to strengthen global regulatory capacity. We request WHO to consider platform diagnostics for emerging infectious diseases as the SAGE works to expand the Essential Diagnostics List. We urge WHO to include efforts to prevent AMR in emergency preparedness and IHR-strengthening activities. Resource-limited countries bear a disproportionate burden of deaths from resistant infections. WHO must help countries strengthen antibiotic stewardship capacities while working to improve preparedness and response.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign-up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. Last week, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) new Science Division unveiled a Health Product Profile Directory—an online resource to guide the research and development of new technologies to combat neglected diseases and other health threats, including antimicrobial resistance and diseases that pose a pandemic threat. The Health Product Profile Directory is a free, searchable database of target product profiles for needed health products to tackle the world’s most pressing global health issues. Each product profile outlines eight to ten key characteristics for development of various health products, including vaccines, medicines, and diagnostics. The directory currently contains 196 product profiles developed by 24 agencies, 91 of which are focused on infectious diseases. In this editorial piece, Dr. Madhukar Pai also discusses whether the product profiles should address affordability, the opportunity to leverage the directory to tap into the potential of emerging innovators in the Global South, and ways to improve the new WHO resource. Every year, 5.4 million people are bitten by snakes. Between 81,000 and 138,000 die as a result, and of those who survive, 400,000 suffer lifechanging injuries. Two years ago, WHO formally classified snakebite as a neglected tropical disease and later this month it will launch a global strategy aimed at halving the number of deaths and cases of disability caused by snakebite by 2030. Last week, two major funding announcements for snakebite research were made public. Wellcome Trust announced a new £80 million program to transform the way snakebite is managed globally, and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) released £9 million to fund the development of a universal snake antivenom. The DFID-funded consortium—which includes the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and snakebite specialists from Kenya, Nigeria, the United States, and India—will leverage the technology and processes that led to the discovery of drugs to combat HIV to develop new antivenom therapies. It will run through 2021, when a pre-clinical prototype of antivenom is expected. TB Alliance was awarded a Center of Excellence in Translational Research grant by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to support the development of two new clinical stage tuberculosis (TB) drug candidates. The grant, spaced out over five years, will provide US$5.5 million in the first year and reach a total of $28.4 million by 2024. With this grant, TB Alliance and its research partners will focus on the development of compounds that address drug-sensitive and multidrug-resistant strains of TB. “Expanding the global portfolio of new TB drug candidates, from which we can assemble tomorrow’s shorter and simpler cures, is crucial in the fight against TB,” said Dr. Mel Spigelman, president and CEO of TB Alliance.