Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba on Monday urged the international community to ensure poor countries have equitable access to vaccines, medicines, tools and technologies.

Addressing the 74th regional committee meeting of the World Health Organisation South-East Asia Region in Kathmandu, he said “reaching out the unreached should be our priority.”

“This session is convened to take important decisions on improving the health status of the people in this region at a time our health systems are overstretched to cater essential health services to the needy people,” said Deuba. “Let’s ensure equitable access to vaccines, medicines, tools and technologies for the sake of humanity.”

The five-day virtual session, attended by health ministers and health officials of the member countries of the region, UN agencies, partners, donors, and civil society representatives, will deliberate on strengthening public health emergency preparedness and response and accelerating progress for prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, among other health issues.

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, addressing the session from Rome said the Covid-19 pandemic continues to take a heavy toll on lives, livelihoods, societies and economies.

“I am pleased to see a decline in cases and deaths in the Southeast Asia region.

following the devastating surge in May of this year. However, the situation varies widely from country to country and place to place, with steep increases and overwhelmed hospitals in some areas,” he said, adding, “We must never again allow a pandemic on this scale. And that we must never again allow an injustice on this scale.”

Bangladesh, Bhutan, North Korea, India, Indonesia, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste are the member countries of the WHO South-East Asia Region.

Regional Director Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh said the coronavirus has taken a massive toll on health systems. Services have been disrupted and health care workers exhausted.

“Our challenge is multi-faceted. We have to regain lost ground in terms of health outcomes, rebuild health systems that have lost capacity and we have to do this at a time when government revenues in all countries will be under intense pressure,” said Singh. “We have learned to expect the unexpected, we have learned that vaccines are essential but not sufficient.”

She also said countries have seen the damage caused by more transmissible variants and understand the risks that more could be on the way.

The WHO country office in Kathmandu said that a ministerial roundtable is planned for Tuesday on ‘building back better’ the essential health services hit by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, with the aim to achieve universal health coverage.

Other key issues to be discussed are regional framework for vaccine action plan, revitalizing school health, and ending viral hepatitis, HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

Progress made by the Region on previous Regional Committee resolutions on measles and rubella elimination by 2023, improving access to essential medical products, and strengthening health systems to accelerate delivery of services for non-communicable diseases at the primary health care level, will also be discussed at the session.

South-East Asia Region, which is home to one-fourth of the global population, but with a disproportionate burden of diseases, the region has been prioritizing elimination of measles and rubella by 2023, addressing noncommunicable diseases through multi-sectoral policies and plans, accelerating reduction of maternal, neonatal and under-five mortality, advancing universal health coverage, reversing antimicrobial resistance, scaling-up emergency risk management capacities, eliminating neglected tropical diseases and ending TB.