WHO, UN, MEMBER STATES URGE ACCELERATION FOR UNIVERSAL HEALTH COVERAGE

Universal Health Coverage provides a key platform for all technical departments to integrate our support into countries

Highlighting primary health care as its foundation, the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations (UN), and member states in the Southeast Asia region underscored the pressing need to expedite progress toward achieving universal health coverage (UHC).

The international organisations, along with the member states, highlighted the issue on the occasion of International Universal Health Coverage Day.

“At the regional level, the South-East Asia Region has prioritised UHC as a flagship priority since 2014. Over the last decade, very significant UHC-related reforms have been and are currently in the process of implementation across the region,” WHO Regional Director for Southeast Asia, Khetrapal Singh, said, adding, “Important gains are already evident.”

Notably, between 2015 and 2021, the region increased its UHC service coverage index from 54 to 62.

“Moreover, between 2014 and 2020, alongside an increase in the share of public investment, out-of-pocket health spending as a share of current health spending decreased from 42.8 percent to 37.9 percent. Moreover, while catastrophic health spending remains a key concern, the population is impoverished and further impoverished due to out of pocket health spending, which declined from 30.5 percent in 2005 to 6.6 percent in 2019,” Khetrapal Singh noted.

However, she emphasised that the progress to date remains insufficient to achieve the UHC SDG targets.