Global Health Summit Highlights Emerging Threats

Global leaders and health experts convened at the 2025 Forecasting Healthy Futures Summit in Rio de Janeiro, spotlighting the growing health crisis driven by climate change and antimicrobial resistance. The summit underscored how rising temperatures, shifting ecosystems, and extreme weather are fueling new and resurgent health risks—threats that demand urgent, coordinated international action.
A centerpiece of the discussion was the World Health Organization’s (WHO) newly endorsed Global Action Plan on Climate Change and Health (2025–2028), adopted at the recent World Health Assembly. The plan calls for climate‑resilient health systems, better early-warning surveillance, and stronger protections for vulnerable populations.Experts emphasized that as climate change intensifies, so too will its health impacts—from heat-related illnesses to mosquito-borne diseases as vectors expand into new regions.
Another top concern was antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Delegates pointed out that drug-resistant infections are now among the most pressing global health threats, undermining decades of medical progressWHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that AMR is no longer a future risk—it is happening now, and could lead to millions of preventable deaths without decisive global action.
Summit participants called for a One Health approach, linking human, animal, and environmental health to address these converging threats. They urged more investment in laboratory capacity, improved diagnostics, and global cooperation to curb AMR, while also aligning climate and health policies to protect fragile health systems from the mounting burden of environmental change.