72nd World Health Assembly Aims to Strengthen Primary Health Care

In the recently held 72nd World Health Assembly in Geneva, delegates reached consensus on three resolutions to meet the Universal Health coverage target and thereby achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The first among the three resolutions are the member countries to implement the Declaration of Astana. It aims to strengthen the primary health coverage and achieve universal health coverage by 2030. This declaration was adopted at the 2018 Global conference on Primary Health Care.

This marked the 40th anniversary of the Declaration of Alma Ata. The second one will be to support the community health worker programs and provide needed resources. These workers will be well trained, supervised and properly recognized for the work they do. Currently, there is a shortfall of 18 million workers in the world. Without any doubt, this will ruin the process to achieve universal health coverage. Yet, these are not enough for the achievement.

A human right based approach will be needed to realize the desired outcome. Universal Health coverage is all about ensuring that people all over the world are receiving equal access to quality health services irrespective of the people and communities without any financial hardship. It comprehensively covers all the services that are needed for any person throughout his life. It includes promotion, prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and palliative care. And all this is possible only by a strong primary health care system.