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-Editorial
The World Health Summit 2022, the world’s leading meeting for global health, began with great success. For the first time, it is co-hosted by the World Health Organization (WHO).
Among the central topics are climate change and health, pandemic preparedness, sustainable health systems, and the role of the G7 and G20 in global health. More than 300 speakers from all regions of the world were expected, among them over 20 government representatives and ministers, representatives from academia, industry, civil society, and international organizations, as well as more than 6,000 participants on-site and online.
“At exactly the moment when the world needed to come together to face this common threat as one, the COVID-19 pandemic has been characterized by a lack of cooperation and coordination,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during his opening remarks. “We can only face shared threats with a shared responsibility, based on a shared commitment to solidarity and equity. That is what the pandemic accord that countries are now negotiating is all about: an agreement between the nations of the world to work together – not in competition with each other – to prepare for and respond to epidemics and pandemics.”
Tedros said that nations need to come together and find a way to improve health access conditions to face the next health threat.
“If nations can negotiate treaties against threats of our own making, like nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, tobacco, and climate change, then surely it makes sense for countries to agree on a common approach to a common threat that we did not fully create and cannot fully control – a threat that comes from our relationship with nature itself,” Adhanom-Ghebreyesu argued.
The World Health Summit 2022 will be the first joint World Health Summit co-hosted with WHO and will be held under the patronage of German Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Senegal’s President Macky Sall, and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The aims of WHS 2022 are to strengthen exchange, stimulate innovative solutions to health challenges, foster global health as a key political issue and promote a global health conversation in the spirit of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The World Health Summit is a unique international strategic forum for global health. Held annually in Berlin, it brings together stakeholders from politics, science, the private sector, and civil society from around the world to set the agenda for a healthier future by inspiring innovative solutions for better health and well-being for all.
The World Health Summit was founded in 2009 on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. It is traditionally held under the patronage of the German Chancellor, the French President, the President of the European Commission, and the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO). The President of the World Health Summit is Axel R. Pries, Dean of Charité.
In addition to the World Health Summit in Berlin, there are annual Regional Meetings and regular Expert Meetings around the world. These meetings are organized by the M8 Alliance, the academic backbone of the World Health Summit.
