Israel's health minister meets with UNGA chief to discuss pandemics

Interior and Health Minister Moshe Arbel met with the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) Chief Csaba Karoshi on Monday night to discuss global preparedness to deal with pandemics.

Arbel was joined in the meeting by Israel's Ambassador to the head of the Governmental Hospitals Division in the Health Ministry Dr. David Dagan and Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan who, together with Moroccan Ambassador Omar Hillal, was appointed to lead the negotiations to formulate a preparedness plan to deal with pandemics.

This is the first UN treaty led by Israel in the UNGA, and Arbel told Erdan that he, therefore, afforded it great importance, and he praised Erdan's work on the project.

What did Arbel and Karoshi discuss?

Arbel and Karoshi also discussed Israel's and Morocco's budding health cooperation. Arbel told Karoshi about his trip to Morocco Last week where he signed a cooperation deal together with his Moroccan counterpart Prof. Khaled It Taleb. He also talked about Israel's diverse health industry and described how Israel handled COVID-19.

During his visit to the UN, Arbel also met with Hillal and a representative from the World Health Organization - Stewart Simonson.

"The COVID-19 pandemic taught us about the importance of promoting treaties based on real-time data and cooperation between countries," said Arbel. "Around the world, viruses don't distinguish between national borders; therefore,  the UNGA his the most natural place to promote strategic processes to deal with preventing pandemics.

"I thank the UNGA chief for expressing faith in the State of Israel in heading the team for promoting the significant processes that will lead to the saving of human lives together with the Moroccan government."