FIND’s intervention statement at the first G20 health working group meeting in Brazil

Delivered by Dr Sergio Carmona, acting CEO
22 February 2024 (Virtual)

Bom dia aos presentes. Parabens a comissão do Brasil. Muito obrigado

I am Sergio Carmona, the acting CEO at FIND.

FIND congratulates the Brazilian G20 Presidency for prioritizing resilient health systems worldwide. Forty-seven percent of the world’s population has little to no access to diagnostics, leaving them at risk for preventable and treatable illnesses. Therefore, addressing the diagnostic gap is essential to achieving the ambitious agenda of the G20 Health Working Group. 

As part of the strategy for strengthening regional and local production of vaccines, treatments and diagnostics, we urge the G20 to work with partners to facilitate knowledge sharing and technology transfers, ease regulatory bottlenecks, address trade and tariff barriers, and develop preferential procurement policies for regionally manufactured products. Please consider how best to leverage the 100 Days Mission and the work of the G20 Joint Finance and Health Task Force to accelerate equitable and sustainable access to lifesaving health technologies before, during and after a health emergency. FIND looks forward to discussions on the Alliance for Regional Production and Innovation, and partnering with the G20 on expanding these efforts to ensure that everyone who needs a test gets one.

Delegates from UK, Germany, EU, Saudi Arabia and others, have highlighted the importance of addressing AMR in the context of PPPR. There is an urgent need to detect AMR in humans, animals, and environmental sources to support One Health surveillance. We ask that investing in surveillance and developing diagnostic tests for protection of new antimicrobial therapies are prioritized in these discussions.

For digital health interventions like AI and telehealth to be realized at-scale and in an equitable manner, quality and representative data sets must be accessible to all, regulatory and policy pathways for digital diagnostic technologies must be harmonized, and local capacity built to guide appropriate selection and use of these technologies. FIND continues to support the Global Initiative on Digital Health (GIDH) and asks that discussions on operationalizing GIDH include diagnostic-related priorities.

Equity lies at the heart of an effective public health response. The G20 can address the inequity in the provision of quality diagnostics by incorporating the recommendations outlined in the resolution on strengthening diagnostics capacity adopted by Member States at last year’s World Health Assembly.

Finally, any measures to mitigate the impact of climate change on health outcomes will fail without addressing the diagnostic gap facing almost half of the world’s population. We call on the G20 to invest in diagnostics to detect and monitor outbreak-prone diseases, leverage genome sequencing and digital tools to strengthen in-country surveillance, and prioritize multiplex platforms and climate-tolerant diagnostic tests. 

Thank you.