On 12 June, the Estonian Minister of Social Affairs Mr Tanel Kiik met with the Director-General of the World Health Organisation, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Minister Kiik and Dr Tedros discussed matters related to Universal Health Coverage, digital health innovations, global alcohol- and tobacco politics and problems arising from pseudomedicine.
In 2015 the UN Member States adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, which include ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all. Universal Health Coverage is one of the most important goals for WHO and requires increased focus on Primary Health Care. The Minister welcomed WHO’s emphasis on digitalizing healthcare systems, which is an important aspect of achieving Universal Health Coverage. The minister talked about Estonia’s experiences and its readiness to share the secure data exchange platform called X-Road that connects all databases securely and cost-efficiently.
Estonia thanked the Director-General for WHO’s support in implementing evidence-based alcohol politics in Estonia. It has helped to considerably reduce alcohol consumption and alcohol-related harm in Estonia during the last decade. Minister Kiik and Dr Tedros also discussed access to medicines and vaccines. Estonia welcomed WHO-s initiative to tackle transparency of the medicines market. As a small market, Estonia has experienced lack of availability of essential medicinal products and shortages of medicines. The rise of new challenges such as misinformation, fueling vaccine hesitancy or attracting people to find cure in non-evidence based treatments in the Internet and in social media was also discussed.
