Key Priority Areas

Health security and antimicrobial resistance

Deadly pathogens can spread rapidly, and infectious disease outbreaks have devastating social and economic consequences that threaten our health security. Their impacts, however, vary between and within countries and communities. Applying a gender and equity lens is therefore important in our response to health security threats, to uncover important insights on transmission patterns and strategies to tackle outbreak prevention and control. Using this lens can also highlight social, cultural and economic factors that influence exposure, severity, assessment, access to services and treatment outcomes between and within groups of women and men. By placing greater attention to gender and equity in our efforts to build stronger, more resilient and sustainable health systems, can help ensure that we are better prepared to face and address health security threats for all women, men, girls and boys in the region and make progress towards achieving gender equality in health.