【Photo Diary】(1)Visit to Geneva for WHO Annual Conference
Published on June 16, 2025
I would like to share with you some of the photographs taken during my visit to Geneva to attend the 78th World Health Assembly (WHA) in my capacity as chairman of The Nippon Foundation and WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination. The WHA is WHO’s decision-making body.
During my stay in the Swiss city, I met with WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and the health ministers and other representatives of various member states. My aim was to assess the current state of the global fight against leprosy (Hansen’s disease) in each country and region in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and explore how to give fresh momentum to achieving our shared goal of a leprosy-free world.
I also attended a ceremony to present the 41st WHO Sasakawa Health Prize. The prize was established by my late father, Ryoichi Sasakawa, to recognize notable advances made in the promotion of primary health care throughout the world.
[May 20, Geneva, Switzerland]
He agreed to our proposal for holding a national leprosy conference in Sri Lanka by the end of the year, possibly between late October and November.
I told him that when I met with Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake in Colombo in February, I was heartened by his interest in our campaign against leprosy. The minister agreed to relay my invitation for him to attend the conference and give a speech to help raise national awareness of the fight against the disease, as well as the stigma and discrimination associated with it.
Like many other representatives from WHO member states, he agreed to pose for a photograph with a banner reading "Don't Forget Leprosy," a campaign that I initiated in 2021 to ensure that leprosy was not overlooked amid the coronavirus pandemic, and which continues today.
With Dr. Mebratu Massebo Cherinet, Chief of Staff and Director General of the Office of the Health Minister of Ethiopia.
We agreed to keep working together on our plan to organize an African leprosy conference in Addis Ababa to reinvigorate the anti-leprosy campaign on the continent.
“Amid rising global health challenges, leaders reaffirmed their support for multilateral cooperation through these contributions to WHO’s Investment Round (IR),” said WHO in a statement. The IR is raising funds for WHO’s strategy for global health, the 14th General Programme of Work, which can save an additional 40 million lives over the next four years.
“I am grateful to every Member State and partner that has pledged towards the investment round. In a challenging climate for global health, these funds will help us to preserve and extend our life-saving work,” Director-General Dr. Adhanom Ghebreyesus Tedros said. “They show that multilateralism is alive and well.”
I pledged US$9.2 million from The Nippon Foundation.
(To be continued)