WHO - World Health Organization

06/23/2022 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 06/23/2022 02:00

WHO Director-General's Speech for CHOGM 2022 side event - 23 June 2022

Your Excellencies Prime Minister Philip Davis;

Deputy Prime Minister Christopher Fearne;

Foreign Minister Alan Ganoo;

Foreign Minister Abdul Momen;

Foreign Minister Jerome Walcott;

Health Minister Daniel Ngamije;

Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends:

Thank you to the governments of Rwanda and Malta for bringing us together to discuss the pressing challenge of antimicrobial resistance.

And thank you to Their Excellencies Prime Minister Mottley of Barbados and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh for their steadfast leadership as co-chairs of the Global Leaders Group on Antimicrobial Resistance.

In our modern, industrialized world, a fundamental truth has too often been pushed aside: that the health of humans, animals and our environment are intimately connected.

The growing threat of AMR threatens to send us back to the time before antibiotics, when even a routine injury could kill.

Already, AMR is estimated to lead to 5 million deaths every year.

That is why we can only truly address the major health challenges of our time with a One Health approach. As COVID-19 has demonstrated, shared global threats require a shared response.

AMR has impacts for every sector, and every sector must be engaged in the response: the public and private sectors, across health, agriculture and environment.

Together, we must change practices to protect the antimicrobials we have;

We must invest in surveillance to have a true picture of the evolution of antimicrobial resistance around the world;

We must invest in research and development for new antibiotics;

And we must find better approaches to waste management.

For years, WHO has worked closely with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health as part of the One Health tripartite.

Earlier this year, we officially became a quadripartite, with the welcome addition of the UN Environment Programme.

Recently, our four organizations published a Strategic Framework for collaboration on antimicrobial resistance, outlining our goals in the coming years.

On behalf of the Quadripartite, I reiterate our shared commitment to support national One Health responses to antimicrobial resistance, which need to be underpinned by policy and technical frameworks and sufficient institutional capacity and resources.

As the world begins to recover from COVID-19, we must remember that many of the measures needed to prevent and mitigate future pandemics are also needed to address antimicrobial resistance.

These include stronger surveillance;

better water, sanitation and hygiene in medical facilities;

enhanced infection prevention and control;

and strengthened systems for human and animal health.

Thank you all for your commitment to addressing this urgent global health challenge.

I look forward to working with Commonwealth countries in our shared fight against antimicrobial resistance.

I thank you.