DG WHO congratulates Portugal for being pilot in the Universal Health and Preparedness Review

The Director-General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus congratulated Portugal for being a pilot country in the Universal Health and Preparedness Review, via Twitter. 

"Congratulations Portugal for piloting the Universal Health and Preparedness Review. Public trust, a resilient health system alongside multi-sectoral cooperation are cornerstones of preparedness capacity Looking forward to hearing from your experience" at the World Health Assembly, he tweeted.

A WHO team visited Portugal from 2 to 6 May under a pilot project to assess and reinforce the response to health emergencies.

The visit included Jaouad Mahjour, Assistant Director-General of the Emergency Preparedness Division within the WHO, Gerald Rockenschaub, Regional Advisor for Disaster Preparedness and Response for the WHO European region, and Stella Chungong, Director, Health Security Preparedness, WHO Headquarters.

This review will make it possible to assess the Portuguese response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Universal Health and Preparedness Review seeks to reinforce the exchange of health resources with partners in the fields of the environment, animal health, defence, internal administration, gender equality, and others, under the preparedness and response to health emergencies and disasters.

Seeing that Portugal is a pilot country in this initiative, this is an opportunity to finetune the global instruments to assess the UN Member States’ capacity.