Honourable Ministers, Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
Good morning, good afternoon and good evening to all Member States, and thank you all for joining us today.
As you know, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed serious gaps in the world's defences against epidemics and pandemics.
It's clear that we can only confront shared threats with a shared approach based on solidarity, mutual trust, mutual accountability, and mutual transparency.
That's why in 2020 we proposed the Universal Health and Preparedness Review.
The UHPR was developed in consultation with you, our Member States, and in the last year, has been piloted in four countries: the Central African Republic, Iraq, Portugal and Thailand.
We are honoured to be joined by representatives of these four countries today:
From Thailand, His Excellency Anutin Charnvirakul, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Public Health, has sent a video message, to be followed by Dr Khanchit, Advisor to the Department of Disease Control. Dr Khanchit previously served as the WHO Representative to Indonesia.
From the Central African Republic, His Excellency Dr Pierre Somsé, Minister of Health and Populations;
From Iraq, Dr Hani Musa Bader, Technical Deputy Minister, and Dr Riyad Al-Hilfi, Director-General of the Ministry of Health;
And from Portugal, Dr Rui Portugal, Deputy Director-General at the Ministry of Health.
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Thank you all for joining us and for sharing your experience with us.
I hope that today's session will provide useful perspectives for ongoing discussions in the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body and the International Health Regulations Working Group.
The Secretariat will continue sharing the results of the voluntary pilot phase with all Member States as you determine the next steps for this initiative.
In a few moments, Dr Mike Ryan will provide a brief overview, followed by the experiences from the countries.
My thanks to Dr Ryan and Dr Samira Asma for leading this collaborative, innovative effort.
As always, we are grateful for your engagement with today's presentations, and we look forward to your questions, comments and guidance.
Before I close, I would like to use this opportunity to remember the late Ambassador Samba of Central African Republic, who proposed the idea, representing the Central African Republic, and that was owned by the African Union. So I believe this is Dr Samba's legacy, and I thank Central African Republic for this innovative idea which we are using, and also, it's a time to remember Ambassador Samba.
Samira, back to you.
