A/RES/70/183 Global health and foreign policy: strengthening the management of international health crises Welcoming the decision of the Secretary-General to appoint a high-level panel on the global response to health crises to make recommendations to strengthen national and international systems to prevent and manage future health crises, taking into account lessons learned from the response to the outbreak of Ebola virus disease in 2014, and looking forward to the report and recommendations of the high-level panel, Recognizing the importance of addressing long-term systemic gaps in capacity to prevent, detect, protect against, control and provide a public health response to the international spread of disease, Recalling World Health Assembly resolution 64.5 of 24 May 2011, entitled “Pandemic influenza preparedness: sharing of influenza viruses and access to vaccines and other benefits”, 7 and underlining the importance of cooperation at the global level in fully implementing the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework, 8 Underscoring the pressing need to build resilient national health systems and strengthen national capacities through attention to, inter alia, quality service delivery, equitable access to health services and products, health systems financing, including appropriate budgetary allocations, the health workforce, health information systems, the procurement and distribution of medicines, vaccines and technologies, sexual and reproductive health-care services and political will and responsibility in leadership and governance, and recognizing the value and importance of universal health coverage in providing access to qual ity health services, while ensuring that the use of these services does not expose the users to financial hardship, with a special emphasis on the members of the poor, vulnerable and marginalized segments of the population, Emphasizing that Member States have primary responsibility for strengthening their capacity in public health to prevent, detect and respond rapidly to outbreaks of major infectious diseases and health crises, through the establishment and improvement of effective public health systems, including strategies for the training, recruitment and retention of sufficient numbers of public health personnel, while recognizing that the magnitude of the necessary response to a specific outbreak may be beyond the capabilities of many countries, in particular developing countries, as well as countries with economies in transition, Aware that access to effective antimicrobial agents constitutes a prerequisite for most modern medicine, that hard-won gains in health and development, in particular those brought about through the health-related Millennium Development Goals, are put at risk by increasing antimicrobial resistance, and that antimicrobial resistance threatens the sustainability of the public health response to many communicable diseases, including tuberculosis, malaria and HIV/AIDS, and welcoming in this regard the global action plan on antimicrobial resistance adopted by the sixty-eighth World Health Assembly, 9 Recognizing that global preparedness for outbreaks of highly infectious pathogens with epidemic potential requires continuous commitment to the research and development of medicines, vaccines and diagnostics, including for emerging diseases and neglected tropical diseases, and recognizing also the need for _______________ 7 See World Health Organization, document WHA64/2011/REC/1. Ibid., annex 2. 9 World Health Organization, document WHA68/2015/REC/1, annex 3. 8 4/8