For over two decades The MENTOR Initiative has been working with communities in challenging, hard to reach settings. Here many people are displaced due to conflict or natural disasters, and there is little or no access to disease prevention and healthcare. Which is why we are pleased to join discussions about reaching those places where people still lack essential disease control interventions at The Reaching the Last Mile Forum on 3 December at COP28.
Sergio Lopes, MENTOR Deputy Director, who is attending the forum in Dubai on Sunday said: “We look forward to discussions about how to effectively reach the last mile, where people affected by conflict and extreme weather urgently need access to disease prevention, diagnostic and treatment tools. We hope honest discussions about how leveraging funding will address the existing intervention gaps in these places that are also the last mile for disease elimination, and not only those hard-to-reach areas in countries and regions making good progress towards global health targets.”
At COP28, MENTOR will also focus on how climate change is shifting the nature and prevalence of vector-borne diseases as vectors adapt to new geographic areas and adopt new breeding and biting behaviours. More information about our research is available in this published paper in the Lancet.
Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, the RLM forum will discuss meeting global health targets in a challenging environment and the importance of integrating health interventions to avoid working in isolation.