France and WHO Improve Health Systems to Combat Covid-19
France’s contribution will help accelerate equitable access to all Covid-19 tools.
The Government of France and WHO on February 9 announced a new €50 million contribution agreement that will help countries’ health systems overcome bottlenecks in the Covid-19 response and speed up equitable access to testing, treatments and vaccines.
The agreement, disclosed on the sidelines of the ministerial conference of foreign ministers and health ministers in Lyon, France, aims to support the work of WHO and work in the Health Systems and Response Connector (HSRC) of the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator (ACT-A), aligned with the WHO’s COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan (SPRP).
The HSRC works to ensure that countries have the technical, operational and financial resources to acquire and efficiently use vaccines and other Covid-19 tools. France’s contribution will help accelerate equitable access to all Covid-19 tools, by looking at each country’s health system’s bottlenecks and identifying the right responses and solutions to them.
The contribution will work through the HSRC to help countries turn vaccines into well-prioritized vaccination campaigns; turn tests into effective test-and-treat approaches; pursue community-based testing strategies to support public health measures and the platform for disease surveillance; and turn therapeutics into life-saving clinical pathways. This means strengthening national response mechanisms, reinforcing health systems and overcoming bottlenecks.
“Global health is of critical importance to the French presidency of the European Union. This support to WHO aims to provide additional support to countries’ health systems,” said Mr Jean-Yves Le Drian, Foreign Minister of France.
France shares key health priorities with WHO, adopting a cross-cutting approach and prioritizing universal health coverage as part of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. In January 2020, France and WHO signed a new framework agreement for 2020-2025, confirming France’s role as a key actor in global health, along with its support for WHO’s Thirteenth General Programme of Work, a five-year strategy that aims to ensure healthy lives and well-being for people of all ages.
