President Cyril Ramaphosa has emphasized the need for expanding global healthcare access to counter any future pandemics. Ramaphosa was speaking during a virtual Friends of Multilateralism round table meeting.
Virtual roundtable on pandemic preparedness and response:
The panel was established in July 2020 by the World Health Organisation to understand the chronology of the coronavirus pandemic, among other things. Ramaphosa has stressed the importance of global preparedness in the healthcare sector.
“As we prepare for future pandemics, we need to accelerate to realise universal healthcare coverage. We need to ensure that vaccines and other lifesaving treatments are seen and considered as public goods by the world. We must act now as a global community to prevent another pandemic from ever again causing such death and devastation. We know that it is the virus that causes the disease but it is human inaction that causes the pandemic.”
