The World Health Assembly (WHA) is the governing body meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO), the technical health agency of the United Nations. The WHA takes place each May at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, and is attended by delegations from all 194 Member States. During the one week meeting, countries agree to resolutions, adopt action plans, supervise finances, review and approve the proposed budgets, discuss key public health issues, and determine the policies of the organization.
Read the summary of the 75th World Health Assembly.
The Secretary of Health and Human Services leads the U.S. delegation to WHA.
75th World Health Assembly Side Event
From Local to Global: Promoting Vaccine Confidence and Fighting the Infodemic
Organizers: The Quad Partners (Australia, India, Japan, and United States)
This event, titled From Local to Global: Promoting Vaccine Confidence and Fighting the Infodemic, was a follow-up commitment made by the Quad Summit leaders in 2021 to rally further cooperation and high-level attention on the need to promote vaccine confidence and combat the infodemic globally. This event was developed and led by the HHS Office of Global Affairs’ Pandemics and Emerging Threats Office in coordination with the Quad Partners (Australia, India, Japan, and U.S.). Moderated by Dr. Vertefeuille from U.S. CDC, the event opened with keynote speeches by Assistant Secretary Levine from the U.S., Assistant Minister Hinoshita from Japan, Joint Secretary Agarwal from India, and Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly from Australia. Each speaker noted experiences and challenges within their country of the negative impact on the pandemic response of the infodemic and decreased confidence in COVID-19 vaccines, and called on global partners to continue dedicated work on promoting vaccine confidence and fighting the infodemic at the local and global levels. The event continued with a panel on challenges and opportunities from the COVID-19 pandemic, including descriptions of challenges presented by the pandemic and the infodemic in prevention and elimination of vaccine preventable diseases, as well as COVID-19 vaccine confidence and uptake – including booster doses – from the national and global levels. The second panel highlighted local experiences in building confidence and resilience though community engagement, managing the infodemic, and sharing success stories and best practices. The event closed with a Q&A session that involved questions and responses highlighting the need to include youth perspectives and engagement in health emergency response.
The attached video is the keynote speech by Assistant Secretary Rachel Levine highlighting the strong U.S. involvement and dedication to promoting vaccine confidence and combatting the infodemic at home and abroad. We invite you to watch and listen to Assistant Secretary Levine’s remarks and join us in our efforts to promote vaccine confidence and combat the infodemic.
