Sharjah 24 – AFP: The Ukraine war, with disease and destruction following in its wake, loomed large Sunday as the WHO convened countries to address a still raging pandemic and a vast array of other global health challenges.
"Where war goes, hunger and disease follow shortly behind," World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on the opening day of the UN agency's main annual assembly.
The assembly, due to run through Saturday, marks the first time the WHO is convening its 194 member states for their first largely in-person gathering since Covid-19 surfaced in late 2019.
Tedros warned important work at the assembly to address a long line of global health emergencies and challenges, including the Covid-19 crisis, could not succeed "in a divided world".
"We face a formidable convergence of disease, drought, famine and war, fuelled by climate change, inequity and geopolitical rivalry," he warned.
The former Ethiopian health minister said he was viewing the ravages in Ukraine through a personal lens: "I am a child of war".
In Ukraine and elsewhere, he said, it is clear peace "is a prerequisite for health".
"We must choose health for peace, and peace, peace, peace."
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