The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated the urgent need to achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) for all, to ensure the resilience of health systems to future health threats and to strengthen our collective responses. Today the pandemic is threatening progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and in particular the SDG for Health (SDG3), which was already off-track. The pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on people living with noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Hypertension, cardiovascular disease and diabetes are the three most common underlying conditions in people who have died of COVID-19. NCDs are a critical barrier to achieving the SDGs and require collective commitment and action as they impose potential disability, out-of-pocket costs, reduced quality of life and undermine progress towards other global health targets such as those for HIV/AIDS and TB.
Objectives
- Explore what is needed to make integrated NCD services a reality as we build back fairer from COVID-19, in particular given the mandate set out by the 2021 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS.
- Share best practice integration examples from country, regional and global levels which reinforce the goal of UHC in particular exploring themes of service delivery, financing and monitoring and evaluation.
- Highlight the need for a coordinated multisectoral response and explore the roles of different stakeholders in ensuring roll out of integrated NCD services.