NOON BRIEFING HIGHLIGHTS

Spokesperson for General Assembly President Csaba Kőrösi
United Nations Headquarters, New York

Thursday, 9 February 2023

HEALTH-RELATED PROCESSES

President Csaba Kőrösi today met with the co-facilitators of the three health-related processes in the General Assembly.

So these are the Ambassadors leading the efforts on the General Assembly’s discussions about Universal Health Coverage, about Tuberculosis and about Pandemic Preparedness and Response.

Those Ambassadors in that order are:

Ambassador Suriya Chindawongse, Permanent Representative of Thailand

Ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, Permanent Representative of Guyana

Ambassador Krzysztof Szczerski, Permanent Representative of Poland

Ambassador Bakhtiyor Ibragimov, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Korea

Ambassador Omar Hilale – Permanent Representative of Morocco

Ambassador Gilad Erdan- Permanent Representative of Israel

Today’s meeting is about working on a timeline for the High-level week of UNGA.

GENERAL COMMITTEE

And more will be discussed on the issue of scheduling this afternoon, when the President convenes a meeting of the General Committee. As you know, that includes all the co-facilitators for the 16 mandated processes.

SCIENCE BRIEFING

On the issue of Pandemic Preparedness and Response, that was the topic of a panel at the first ever Science Briefing to the General Assembly on Tuesday.

Epidemiologists and researchers taking part called for pathogen surveillance and an open-source global early warning system that would include data from a wide range of sources and streams.

They spoke about climate change contributing to a rise and shift in public health.

And gave some specific examples of how an early warning system could have been used.

One of these examples was from Brazil. Had such a system been in place, it possibly could have  put together information on the cases of Zika and microcephaly in newborns.

They also spoke about early monitoring systems now underway. For example dengue on the border of Argentina and Paraguay.

There was also the example from the Republic of Korea, where they are taking samples from public areas to check pathogens – to research levels of anti-bacterial resistance in Asia.

There is a press release with more information: https://www.un.org/pga/77/2023/02/09/un-general-assembly-hears-calls-for-pathogen-surveillance-and-early-warning-platform/

This is the last from the Science Briefing. You have two earlier ones on the economics of water, and on water conflict, climate and cooperation.

QUESTIONS

The Spokesperson was asked about the potential Emergency Special Session the week of 20 February. The Spokesperson said that she had nothing to announce.