G20 health ministers take on dangerous inequalities

G20 Health Ministers and international organisations meeting in Polokwane, South Africa, are focusing their attention on an urgent shared threat to public health: inequalities.

- By Ben Phillips

Delegates from across the word have highlighted how entrenched gaps in wealth, income and access to basic services within and between countries are undermining governments' collective capacity to protect everyone's health.

Informing deliberations at the meeting is the landmark new report, Breaking the inequality-pandemic cycle: building true health security in a global age, which revealed a vicious cycle: how inequality is making pandemics more likely, more deadly and more costly; and how pandemics are increasing inequalities. The report was produced by the independent expert group, the Global Council on Inequality, AIDS and Pandemics, convened by UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima, and co-chaired by Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz, Executive Chairperson of the One Economy Foundation and former First Lady of Namibia Monica Geingos, and renowned epidemiologist Professor Sir Michael Marmot. It brings together economists, public health experts, civil society activists and current and former government leaders.

The Global Council held the international launch of the report on Monday this week in Johannesburg, and then presented the report to President Cyril Ramaphosa in Cape Town on Tuesday, before heading up to Polokwane to address health ministers on Thursday and Friday. As well as identifying the inequality-pandemic cycle, the Global Council has also set out practical steps that can be taken to break the cycle.

South African Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi welcomed the Global Council report, noting that “the inequality story it highlights resonates so powerfully with our South African story. We defeated the division of Apartheid, but we are still challenged by the division in services between the richest and the majority. We can only ensure public health by enabling access for everyone, through strengthening the public health system. A more equitable system is vital for overcoming pandemics and other emergencies.”