The People's Health Assembly

Editor—The editorial by Chowdhury and Rowson refers to the enduring relevance of primary healthcare principles established in Alma Ata to the insufficient resources available to support primary healthcare action in poor communities, and to the need for a shared vision of health for all.¹

Much of our work at the World Health Organization focuses on increasing resources to improve health for the world's 3 billion poor people. In December the Okinawa conference on infectious diseases—attended by representatives of governments and non-governmental organisations from developing countries, international agencies, research groups, and other interested parties—laid out strategies to combat the main health conditions that cause and perpetuate poverty. It followed up on statements made by G8 leaders on the critical importance of health in the context of strategies for poverty reduction.

Poor people should have more opportunity to access the services, commodities, and information that they need for better health. Organisations in the private and public sectors need to cooperate. The factors in society that increase people's vulnerability to disease should be tackled. Healthy public policies, in employment, in housing, in trade, and in education, are needed. Health must be properly located within national poverty reduction strategies.

The forces of globalisation must work for the poor, so that they enjoy better health as a result of increased crossborder movements of products, people, services, and information. We will seek new incentives for research and development, for new vaccines, better medicines, and more reliable diagnostics. We will build on the converging interests of global public health, the research based pharmaceutical industry, and those who set the rules for international trade.

We will support the protection of patents as a necessary and effective incentive for research and development, so that patents are managed in ways that benefit the patent holders and the public. We will enable countries to access information on all the potential options for increasing people's access to essential medicines, including tiered pricing when they are on patent.

We will re-examine arrangements through which development assistance contributes to better health. I am inspired by the suggestion of an emerging popular movement for health for all. I shall continue to ensure that the WHO works, as encouraged by its member states, for equitable health outcomes, and seek ways to work effectively with other groups with similar values, especially if they may be able to make significant contributions to the fulfilment of these outcomes and to the empowerment of those whose lives are blighted by illness and suffering.