Secretary Azar Attends G7 Health Ministerial Meeting and Participates in Bilateral Meetings

Today, May 16, 2019, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar participated in bilateral meetings with health ministers and attended the first day of the G7 Health Ministerial Meeting in Paris, France, as the head of the U.S. delegation.

First, Secretary Azar participated in a bilateral meeting with Agnès Buzyn, France’s Minister of Solidarity and Health, where they discussed the importance of vaccines and the need to work together towards global health security in the context of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). They also discussed President Trump’s plan to lower drug prices and reduce out-of-pocket costs. At the conclusion of the meeting, Secretary Azar and Minister Buzyn discussed the U.S. government’s Antimicrobial Resistance Challenge.

In the afternoon at the G7 Health Ministerial Meeting, ministers discussed strengthening primary healthcare, which addresses the needs of populations at every stage of people’s lives, to combat health inequalities and why a common operational culture of primary healthcare strengthening is now needed. During the meeting, Secretary Azar noted that the best thing for improving health inequalities is employment and economic opportunity. He praised President Trump’s leadership to secure new jobs for Americans and the U.S. unemployment rate which is the lowest in 50 years and the lowest rate unemployment ever recorded for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans.