The 75th World Health Assembly, which is taking place in Geneva from yesterday until next May 28, will bring together all 194 WHO countries for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic.

This year’s session of the World Health Assembly focuses on the theme “Health for Peace, Peace for Health” and is also characterized by the appointment of the next Director General, which should see Tedros Adhanom confirmed for another five years. Ghebreyesus, indicator as a candidate from several Member States.

In the plenary section this morning, the Director General presented the World Health Statistics 2022 document, in which a large part was dedicated to the numbers of Coronavirus: “Significant inequalities – reads the document – are the basis of the distribution of cases and Covid-19 deaths, as well as access to vaccinations. 74% of people in high-income countries are vaccinated but only 12% are vaccinated in low-income countries, where only 3 out of 10 health workers have completed their cycle compared to a global average of 80% ”.

The Director General of WHO Ghebreyesus, in his inaugural speech, drew attention to this aspect, recalling how “health cannot be guaranteed as long as there are inequalities in the world”.

A representation of the Republic of San Marino the Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, Roberto Ciavatta, the Director of the Health Authority Claudio Muccioli, the Permanent Ambassador of the Republic of San Marino to the United Nations in Geneva Marcello Beccari, Beatrice Simoncini , Embassy Secretary of the Foreign Affairs Department.

In his speech delivered within the Assembly, Secretary Ciavatta passed as “After more than two years in which we are all affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has greatly threatened the health of our citizens, the images of hospitals reduced to rubble by bombing, they add to a situation that is already degraded in itself. hospitals, without medical personnel, without the possibility of carrying out emergency procedures, the toll of any conflict degenerates and risks turning into tragedy. In such dramatic competitions, the protection of health risks being compromised, always affecting the weakest segments of the population and, as always, a population deprived of access to care is a population more exposed to reactions, rebellions and generalized discontent.

He then went on to recall how “During the First World War the Republic of San Marino organized a field hospital in which, in July 1918, Ernest Hemingway received his first treatments. I like to believe that even through the work of the San Marino field hospital we have been allowed to enjoy Hemingway’s literature today. Every soldier, every civilian wounded in war could be a future Hemingway that humanity must not take the risk of losing. I therefore believe that the WHO can play an important role in dialogue between the parties, focusing on how health is a primary interest shared by each country, as well as an important role in the coordination and distribution of devices and drugs necessary to guarantee everyone the access to care. However, to quote the Director General, there is a ‘medicine that the WHO cannot provide and that is peace’: to obtain it, dear colleagues, do not exercise it but rely on our common will to truly embark on a path towards dialogue and international cooperation “.

During the morning, before the afternoon plenary section where he spoke, Secretary Ciavatta met with a cordial bilateral Albert Font Massip, Minister of Health of the Principality of Andorra. At the center of the meeting are the common policies that the two countries are pursuing in the working table of the Small Countries Initiative, set up by the WHO in 2013.