He said that activities on public health are for saving the valuable lives of human being and ensuring their dignity and fundamental rights, adding that public health is also a core issue of SDGs (sustainable development goals).

He went on:

Yet still, nearly half of the world population do not have access to basic medical care, let alone the benefit from advanced medical science, and its underlying cause can be said to be the lack of political will and practical efforts of the member states.

Public health system under the people-centered socialist country of our own style is a complete and universal free medical system which provides the medical care to all without distinction as to gender, age, occupation and residence.

We have set out the goal to elevate the health indices, including average life expectancy of the population and prevention rate of communicable diseases, up to the advanced level of the world in the near future by developing the public health service.

Since we have the strong infrastructure in health sector and the spirit of self-reliance and self-development, we are confident enough that we could overcome all challenges and achieve the health-related targets enshrined in SDGs within a short period of time.

Precautionary attention should be made in attaining the universal health coverage to keep the public health activities from degenerating into profit business, a considerable departure from its noble mission of saving lives and ensuring rights and dignity of the people.

The government of DPRK will continue to put enormous input into the socialist public health activities, thus actively contributing to the global endeavor for achieving health-related target of SDGs, by taking as its policy the full responsibility and care of the health of its people.