In March this 12 months, I visited Japan for the primary time because the COVID-19 pandemic. Though I’ve been to the nation a number of instances earlier than, each time I stroll Tokyo’s vibrant streets I’m nonetheless struck by the sheer quantity of people that dwell, work and play within the megalopolis. The higher Tokyo space is dwelling to greater than 37 million folks. It appears extraordinary {that a} nation with such city density and the oldest inhabitants on the earth has a COVID-19 mortality price considerably decrease than different comparable international locations.
As of June 2023, Japan’s variety of COVID-19 deaths per capita was 602 per million folks. That is about half that of Canada, the G7 nation with the second-lowest variety of deaths per million folks. And it’s many multiples lower than the USA, the UK and Italy, who all suffered round 3,300 deaths per million folks. What did Japan have that prevented a tragic lack of life on the identical scale as the remainder of different OECD international locations?
A part of the reply lies in Japan’s struggle in opposition to TB and its achievement of common well being protection (UHC) after World Conflict II. Within the early Nineteen Fifties, Japan launched an enormous nationwide effort to fight TB – at the moment by far the most important explanation for loss of life within the nation – that mixed the most recent scientific instruments, group mobilization, non-public sector engagement and decided efforts to succeed in essentially the most marginalized communities. Lots of the approaches which can be deemed progressive in well being programs at the moment, resembling grassroots expertise informing high-level coverage, native teams main case-finding, and obligatory office testing, had been pioneered in Japan many years in the past.
Not solely did Japan obtain dramatic reductions in TB infections and deaths, but it surely used this effort because the platform on which to create common well being protection – a complete well being system accessible to all, with a robust public well being element. Japan’s well being system intervenes early, displays sufferers totally and, critically, goals to go away nobody behind. Though no system is ideal, the nation’s success in opposition to COVID-19 demonstrated the energy of this strategy.
Japan has confirmed that focusing intensely on preventing an infectious illness delivers rather more than the advantage of halting that specific risk. It additionally creates resilient well being programs which can be really common, reaching people who find themselves residing in poverty stigmatized, weak or geographically remoted and who are sometimes disproportionately affected by sickness and illness.
We must always be taught from Japan and seize this double alternative within the world struggle to finish TB and different infectious illnesses resembling HIV and malaria. In lots of international locations internationally, the easiest way to attain UHC is by ending the unfinished fights in opposition to these three preventable, treatable illnesses. Turbocharging the struggle in opposition to HIV, TB and malaria will unlock the twin advantages of saving thousands and thousands extra lives whereas concurrently constructing extra resilient, equitable and sustainable well being programs that may make the world battle-ready for future well being threats.
2023 has the potential to be a landmark 12 months in our journey towards extra international locations attaining UHC and strengthening world pandemic preparedness. A whole lot of worldwide leaders will collect in New York for the United Nations Basic Meeting this September, the place three UN high-level conferences on TB, UHC and pandemic preparedness will put world well being on the coronary heart of the deliberations of this world gathering. These historic conferences can function the pivot level in accelerating progress to finish TB and different infectious illnesses, whereas constructing a formidable well being infrastructure that may ship UHC and construct stronger defenses in opposition to future well being threats.
Collectively, we will harness the momentum and enthusiasm galvanized by these conferences to speed up the equitable deployment of the simplest disease-specific instruments and interventions for current illnesses, resembling TB. On the similar time, we will likely be constructing extra resilient, sustainable and inclusive well being and group programs to forestall and detect infectious illness threats and reply successfully every time and wherever they happen.
We’ve got a terrific alternative to place the “U” into “UHC,” by making certain everybody, particularly essentially the most weak, has entry to well being care. In crafting the technique to assist us obtain that aim, we might be impressed by Japan’s instance of turbocharging the struggle in opposition to TB as a path to delivering UHC and strengthening pandemic preparedness.
This op-ed was first revealed in Forbes.
