First meeting of G20 Health Ministers in Berlin

To be better prepared for future health crises, the G20 Health Ministers, together with representatives from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank, had taken the opportunity to rehearse the event of a transnational outbreak. In ‘Anycountry’, a notional low-income state, there is an outbreak of a deadly disease that is transmitted via the respiratory tract and threatens to spread globally. The crisis exercise had put information flows and decision-making making pathways to the test. How do we ensure that outbreaks of dangerous diseases are promptly reported by the countries concerned? How can we deliver a faster international response? What can the G20 do so that global health crises are quickly contained? And how can the World Health Organization be made stronger?

Germany advocates a further strengthening of the WHO because it has a key role in dealing with global health crises. This is also the purpose of the Contingency Fund for Emergencies (CFE) set up in 2015, which Germany supports as the largest contributor with some $13 million. Over and above this, for the first time, Germany is making a voluntary additional contribution to the WHO in 2017, with €35 million out of the Federal Ministry of Health budget. The Health Ministry also deploys experts to provide in-country support in crisis situations as part of the Global Health Programme, and helps in disease outbreak prevention.

A further topic at the G20 Meeting of Health Ministers is on combating antimicrobial resistance (AMR). This is one of the biggest threats to global health and affects industrialised and developing countries alike. One of the most important responses comprises the National Action Plans on antimicrobial resistance called for in the WHO Global Action Plan on AMR. Germany has shown the way with the German Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy (DART) and had been presenting an interim report on progress in Germany’s efforts during the G20 Meeting of Health Ministers.

Germany took over the Presidency of the G20 – the Group of Twenty leading industrialised and emerging economies – for one year on 1 December 2016.