India to achieve universal health coverage

The health objective under the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals is the most important target on the agenda for India and other countries because of its inextricable connection with other indicators of socio-economic development such as poverty, zero hunger, quality education, gender equality, clean water, and sanitation. The key ingredient of this goal is to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all in all ages that implies universal health coverage.

The Health Assembly of World Health Organization has set the target of “Health for all” in May 1977. These were to be achieved by the end of 2000. In the year 2000, the Millennium Development Goals were formulated by the UN with the target for achievement set for 2015. This was then followed by the sustainable development goals that were set by the UN in 2016 that was to be achieved by 2030 by all the member nations. Throughout all these trajectories, the essence of health for all agenda was preserved. The SDGs advocate universal health coverage for which the definition of health requires to be understood from a holistic perspective.

This would also entail the revisiting of the 70-year-old definition of health as explained by the world health organization as a state of complete physical, mental, social well-being will not only help in better perception of diseases but also provide better equipment in deciding the right priority for public health interventions. The ongoing 71st world health assembly in Geneva deliberated on the significance of environmental, climate, and other determinants of health. The known avoidable environmental risk factors cause more than 13 million deaths every year and more than one-quarter of the global burden of disease.

Other than the important points, one most crucial factor that needs to be considered while comparing the magnitude of different diseases is the level of parasitemia or viremia in the common population group, incubation period and the presence of pathogens in the non-human host in close environment, etc. the nations that are affected by the negligence of tropical diseases need to intensify the efforts to achieve elimination that is validated and universal care for the disabled persons.

In the third century BC, Ashoka ruler is believed to have said that he is going to propagate medicinal herbs throughout my kingdom to make sure complete accessibility to all my subjects as it is his ethical responsibility to provide good health to all people.

 Source: The TeCake

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