Spain promotes an alliance between Europe and America at the World Health Assembly to strengthen primary health care

The Minister for Health, Mónica García, attends the plenary session of the 79th World Health Assembly, held in Geneva (Switzerland)

The Minister for Health, Mónica García, took part in the plenary session of the 79th World Health Assembly, which is being held at the Palais des Nations, the UN headquarters in Geneva (Switzerland), in an edition marked by the international debate on the response to global health threats such as hantavirus and Ebola, as well as the final push for negotiations on the future Pandemic Treaty.

During the opening session, the Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Tedros Adhanom, thanked Spain for its commitment to strengthening health multilateralism and defending resilient and equitable public health systems: "I want to thank the President, Pedro Sánchez, and Minister Mónica García, for their outstanding leadership in response to the hantavirus crisis."

The Minister for Health chaired and spoke at the high-level meeting sponsored and chaired by Spain together with members of the Pan American Health Organisation and WHO Europe to address the role of primary care in the global health architecture.

During her speech, Mónica García stressed that "we agree that primary care is a vector of equity and the basis for universal health coverage and resilient and equitable health systems". She stressed that "primary care has also been described as an essential function of the overall health architecture" and welcomed "the readiness of both regions to create a partnership to promote and strengthen primary care".

"The resilience of health systems does not depend solely on the capacity to respond to health emergencies, but begins in health centres, in neighbourhoods, in the capillarity that allows us to reach the people who need it most," she said.

Under the title "The role of primary health care in protecting equity for a stronger global health ecosystem: advancing cooperation between Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean", the high-level dialogue organised by the Government of Spain brought together politicians and institutional representatives from both regions to exchange experiences, identify common challenges and explore formulas for structured cooperation on health systems.

The meeting took place in an international context marked by increasing inequalities, pressure on health systems and the need to adapt global health to new challenges. In this scenario, primary care emerges as a key tool to ensure the protection of the most vulnerable populations, strengthen trust in public institutions and move towards more sustainable and inclusive health systems.

The dialogue also addressed new avenues for funding and international cooperation to promote structural reforms in health systems, as well as the possible creation of a permanent inter-regional mechanism for knowledge exchange and joint learning between Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean.

"With meetings like this one, Spain is giving new impetus to its historic role as a bridge between the American and European continents, and this places us in a privileged position to exercise leadership in the new design of the global health architecture," concluded Mónica García.

Non official translation