Ukraine war, pandemic on agenda at WHO international meeting
- Nearly 200 member states meet in Geneva for the World Health Organization’s first in-person assembly in three years
- WHO chief: ‘We face a formidable convergence of disease, drought, famine and war, fuelled by climate change, inequity and geopolitical rivalry’
The Ukraine war, with disease and destruction following in its wake, loomed large on Sunday as the WHO convened countries to address a still raging pandemic and a vast array of other global health challenges.
“Where war goes, hunger and disease follow soon behind,” World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on the opening day of the UN agency’s main annual assembly.
The assembly, due to run until Saturday, marks the first time the WHO is convening its 194 member states for a largely in-person gathering since Covid-19 surfaced in late 2019.
Tedros warned that important work at the assembly to address a long list of global health emergencies and challenges, including the Covid-19 crisis, could not succeed “in a divided world”.
“We face a formidable convergence of disease, drought, famine and war, fuelled by climate change, inequity and geopolitical rivalry,” he warned.
The former Ethiopian health minister said he was viewing the ravages in Ukraine through a personal lens: “I am a child of war”. In Ukraine and elsewhere, he said, it is clear peace “is a prerequisite for health”, adding: “We must choose health for peace, and peace, peace, peace.”
