Minister Paris participates in WHO special session

Chile’s Health Minister, Enrique Paris, participated in the special session of the WHO World Health Assembly, held in Geneva, Switzerland, which aims to discuss how to act in the face of future pandemics. It took place following a proposal from Chile’s Government. 

Minister Paris stated that the main lesson learned from the COVID-19 pandemic is that “no one will be safe until we are all safe.” He added, “we are convinced that a new instrument would allow progress on issues such as local-level vaccine production, which, fortunately, is happening in Chile with the upcoming production of COVID-19 vaccines.”

He also stressed that “creating an intergovernmental negotiating body responsible for drafting and negotiating an agreement or another WHO instrument for pandemic prevention, preparedness and response is certainly an achievement that has resulted from the lessons learned.”  

As well as expressing his gratitude for the invitation to participate in the special session, the minister praised the work carried out by Chilean delegation in Geneva, because “it has managed to unify many countries to start working on a guiding document that would allow the WHO to be strengthened and more prepared for a new pandemic, sending out a message of solidarity and working together, not only on the issue of vaccines, but also research and the protection of low-income countries.” 

Chile’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Frank Tressler, referred to the fact that the initiative to discuss how to act in the face of future pandemics was driven by our country, together with authorities from international organizations. “For us, it’s a great pleasure to be here, since it’s the beginning of a process that started a year ago when we proposed the idea of negotiating a binding instrument for better preparedness and response to future pandemics. We’ve reached consensus with all the countries in the organization to initiate this process at the end of this assembly. The idea is to generate a binding treaty that contains concepts of equity, cooperation and solidarity among states, so that we can face future pandemics,” he stressed. 

Bilateral meetings 

During the special session, Minister Paris met with the director-general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom, who commended Chile’s handling of the pandemic. He also expressed the need to strengthen the organization’s role in terms of countries’ equal access to vaccines, tests and medicines. 

Dr. Adhanom suggested to Minister Paris the idea of strengthening countries’ economic support and increasing their contributions. In this way, the WHO would have more independence and influence in vaccine and medicine production and distribution, so as to achieve a balance between countries that cannot purchase and distribute vaccines for their population on their own. 

Minister Paris also met with the executive director of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, Dr. Michael Ryan, and the director of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Use at the WHO, Dr. Dévora Kestel, to discuss joint work in this area. The minister emphasized that a great effort has been devoted to the issue of mental health in Chile. He explained that the meeting took place with the purpose of exchanging opinions and sharing strategies on this matter.  

“Chile has a large number of publications on the subject, but we’ve realized that we must have a greater international presence. In this sense, we’re going to continue working. With this issue, the actions of the primary healthcare system are very important, because they have to be very decisive in various aspects, very decisive in mental health and they must promote liaison psychiatry,” the minister explained. He added that one of the issues that caught Dr. Kestel’s attention was how Chile has developed remote care through the Digital Hospital, with the hiring of personnel for this purpose and the existence of pilot programs. 

Minister Paris and International Economic Affairs Undersecretary Rodrigo Yáñez also met with the President of Vietnam, Nguyễn Xuân Phúc, to start collaborative work with the Asian country on the process of coronavirus vaccination. The meeting was also attended by Chile’s permanent representative to the WTO, Mathias Francke, and Chile’s permanent representative to the United Nations in Geneva, Frank Tressler. 

On Tuesday, Minister Paris will meet with Dr. Philippe Duneton, executive director of Unitaid, an international initiative that promotes access to treatment for diseases such as HIV-AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in developing countries.