国連高齢者の日記念成人予防接種サイドイベントにおける星野大使ステートメント
令和元年10月11日
(Check Against Delivery)
Colleagues,Ladies and Gentlemen,
At the outset, I would like to express my appreciation to the main organizer, the International Federation on Ageing, and the partners, speakers and participants who have made this event possible.
Today’s theme “Positioning Adult Vaccination”, which aims at ending immunization inequality, aligns well with the theme of this year’s United Nations International Day of Older Persons: “The journey towards age equality”. The topics of immunization and healthy ageing are also very much at the heart of Japan's global health policy and priorities in the context of Universal Health Coverage, or UHC, which we have been promoting at the highest levels and here in New York as the chair of the Group of Friends of UHC and Global health. Ensuring and scaling up immunization coverage is one of the cornerstones of primary health care, and an important entry point for UHC. Furthermore, as the world is experiencing increasing population ageing, the aim of this event — to take a life-course approach to vaccinations — is now more relevant than ever.
With the aim of sharing relevant global discussions on ageing and vaccination, I would like to share some highlights from recent G20 Summit in Osaka, and the UNGA High-Level Meeting on UHC here in New York.
At the G20 Osaka Summit, the leaders’ declaration underscored the importance of health as a prerequisite for sustainable and inclusive economic growth, and highlighted the necessity of UHC, including vaccination, public health preparedness and response, addressing antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and promoting healthy and active ageing. These points, including ageing and vaccination, will be substantially and substantively elaborated at the G20 Health Ministers’ Meeting to be held on the 19th and 20th of October this year, in Okayama, Japan.
With regard to the political declaration of the UNGA High-Level Meeting on UHC, which was formally adopted just yesterday, leaders agreed on dedicated paragraphs on healthy and active ageing as well as immunization. As for ageing, leaders committed to “scale up efforts to promote healthy and active ageing, maintain and improve quality of life of older persons and to respond to the needs of the rapidly ageing population.” On immunization, leaders agreed to “strengthen public health surveillance and data systems, improve routine immunization and vaccination capacities, including by providing evidence-based information on countering vaccine hesitancy, and expand vaccine coverage to prevent outbreaks as well as the spread and re-emergence of communicable and non‑communicable diseases”.
The political declaration on UHC also includes a bold commitment to cover all people with quality essential health services, including vaccinations, and to eliminate impoverishment due to health-related expenses by the year 2030. To achieve these goals, we need to ensure a healthy and actively ageing population, and to this end vaccination is a cornerstone.
Let us work together to live up to the commitment to ‘leave no one behind’ so that everyone can ‘add years to life, and life to years’.
I am looking forward to the discussions. I thank you.