Health and Medical Care

President Biden, Distinguished Guests,

Japan has committed to providing international assistance that amounts to 3.9 billion US dollars focusing on three pillars: 1) Overcoming the current pandemic, 2) Strengthening health systems to prepare for future health crises, and 3) Generating an enabling international environment for health security across broader sectors.

These three pillars contribute greatly to the targets presented at today’s Summit towards ending the pandemic and building back better.

In order to support the efforts undertaken by the COVAX Facility, Japan has pledged 1 billion US dollars in total, including at the COVAX Advance Market Summit in June. In addition, Japan has provided approximately 23 million doses of COVID vaccine to various countries and regions across the world, which is the third largest provision of vaccine in the world so far.

Today, I am pleased to announce that, with additional contributions, Japan will provide up to approximately 60 million doses of vaccine in total.

At the same time, in order to ensure the delivery of vaccines to each and every person, we have implemented “Last One Mile Support” in about 60 countries.

Furthermore, in order to save as many lives as possible, we have been providing assistance to countries to strengthen their response capabilities to the pandemic by providing oxygen concentrators and ventilators. Japan will continue such assistance in order to overcome this public health crisis.

With regard to strengthening global health security, we will continue to actively contribute to on-going international discussions, including the ones being held within the G20 process, by exercising our expertise in promoting initiatives to secure robust and resilient financial resources for universal health coverage.

Under the principle of human security, Japan is committed to continue to lead international efforts to achieve universal health coverage.