Excellencies, Members of the scientific and health community, Distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,
I’m delighted to be here with you this evening. It’s not very often you get the opportunity to meet some of the world’s brightest scientific minds in a single evening.
I’m particularly pleased that this 9th European Congress on Tropical Medicine and International Health is being held here in Basel, Switzerland, where a great deal of cutting-edge research is being led in the area of global health and extraordinary medical breakthroughs have their origins.
Many of you are leaders in your field and at the forefront of these efforts. But what truly binds you together as one community is your unwavering commitment to improving peoples’ lives through scientific progress and your quest of finding solutions to the biggest health – and indeed social – challenges of our times.
The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) is committed to investing in the health sector because good health is essential for reducing poverty and increasing global stability. Often forgotten, health is also a human right, which was the topic of SDC’s Annual Conference this year, held here in this venue just over two weeks ago.
Driving the best science to meet global health challenges – the overarching theme of this congress – is therefore just as much a topic for development practitioners as it is for medical and health experts.
The importance of scientific research to health and development
Indeed, this conference comes at a time of wide-ranging changes in international development and cooperation. In less than three weeks, the 193 Member States of the United Nations will formally adopt the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes a new set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These goals serve to stimulate action in areas of critical importance to humanity and our planet over the coming fifteen years. They will also inform Switzerland’s international cooperation strategy 2017-2020, as defined in the Federal Council’s new Dispatch to Parliament.
Switzerland has been heavily involved in formulating the health-related SDG, and health will be an important focus of Switzerland’s international cooperation strategy. Over the past two decades, we have seen the tremendous returns that investments in health can make:
Since 1990, global deaths of children under the age five have been cut in half from 13 million to 6 million, and falling fast – this means the lives of over 17,000 children are saved every day when compared to 1990. Perhaps most telling is the fact that worldwide life expectancy has increased by six years to a global average of 71.
These are remarkable achievements. But the progress made so far remains uneven and fragile. Many diseases prevail mainly or exclusively in low- and middle-income countries. Up to 95% of all deaths associated with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria occur in developing countries. Apart from these relatively well-publicized diseases, there are other lesser known but no less deadly diseases. Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) affect over 1 billion people, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa and mostly those living in remote rural areas, urban slums or conflict zones. NTDs account for a major part of the national disease burden in these countries and are responsible for half a million deaths every year. On top of the physical and emotional suffering they wreak, these devastating diseases also hamper people’s ability to work, force children to stay out of school, and prevent families and whole communities from thriving. As a result, NTDs trap the poor in a cycle of poverty and ill health.
If we want to win the fight against poverty and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, we must find ways to control and eliminate NTDs. As the recent Ebola crisis so dramatically showed, in an interconnected world like ours a local outbreak of a disease can rapidly turn into a global security issue. It is therefore in our collective interest to help all countries bolster their national health systems and be better equipped to respond to global health risks.
New challenges lie ahead. But perhaps the biggest of all is finding ways to cope with the many unknowns: Will deadly communicable diseases such as malaria and dengue fever spread further as a result of climate change, migration and urban sprawl? Will drug resistance continue to rise?
Science helps us hedge against these many uncertainties and to protect ourselves against existing and emerging risks. Of course, science alone is not enough. We also need partnerships between governments, the private sector, civil society and academia to develop and deploy our arsenal of tools. But science is at the heart of innovation and provides the evidence needed to make competent decisions.
Moving from scientific research to policy and practice
However, translating scientific findings into policy and practice is not always as straightforward as one might think. The world of scientists is often not sufficiently connected to the worlds of policy-makers or practitioners. To bridge this gap we need more operational and policy-relevant research, which brings the science closer to the development challenges we face today and are likely to face in the future.
Switzerland is well-positioned to advance such efforts. Geneva is arguably the world’s preeminent health capital, home to the World Health Organization and other major international health institutions. But we also benefit from the vast know-how and applied expertise of the Swiss health sector, which includes the pharmaceutical and biotech industries as well as a wide array of research bodies, such as the convener of this conference, the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute.
SDC has been working with many of these partners in an effort to promote research and development that serve the needs of the poor.
The Swiss contribution: citizen participation and new forms of collaboration
One way in which Switzerland seeks to promote policy-relevant research and make science more relevant for development is by increasing citizen participation and the active engagement of communities in improving people’s lives. This is at the heart of a human rights-based approach.
Several SDC-sponsored sessions at this conference will look at the positive contributions of such citizen participation in the area of health, e.g. in Guatemala or Chad, where human health and veterinary experts are working together to provide essential vaccines to Nomadic people and their livestock.
SDC has also been active in developing new forms of public-private partnerships that promote research and development (R&D) for more affordable medicines and diagnostics. In the absence of a viable market, as is typically the case with NTDs and niche products, innovative financing mechanisms that complement the patent system are the only way to make badly needed medical products available to the poor. One of the sessions in the program addresses this topic: “Where there is no market – exploring novel approaches to R&D for diseases of the poor.”
The Product Development Partnerships (PDPs) are the successful outcome of close public and private collaboration. The Geneva-based Medicines for Malaria Venture and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative have both expanded R&D for drugs against malaria and neglected tropical diseases. The Medicines for Malaria Venture’s partnership with Novartis Pharma has enabled the delivery of 250 million Coartem® Dispersible treatments in 50 malaria-endemic countries.
The Swiss Malaria Group is yet another collaboration that cuts across different sectors. Supported by the SDC, the group brings together research institutions, public institutions, the private sector and civil society organizations to reinforce the fight against malaria. Their common goal is to keep a united front against the disease and strengthen Switzerland’s resolve in this area by raising awareness and influencing policy at all levels.
Conclusion
Ladies and Gentlemen,
By joining forces we have the potential to advance research which is inspired by development goals and make a real difference in poor people’s lives.
The many promising initiatives already underway as well as the positive spirit of this conference give me great confidence that we will see more development-oriented science in the future.
On behalf of the SDC, I wish you interesting discussions and an inspiring few days here in Basel.
Thank you.