Queen Mathilde pronounced the opening speech at the 60th scientific conference "Connecting the Dots: One Planet, One Health, One Future" organized by the Institute for Tropical Medicine at De Zuiderkroon in Antwerp.
"The Institute for Tropical Medicine has made an invaluable contribution to medical and scientific research on tropical diseases, benefitting developing countries in particular. It has fostered major discoveries, for example, concerning Ebola fever. It is engaged in renewed efforts to eradicate sleeping sickness. It has trained generations of new doctors, new researchers, new scientists, from all over the world, who will continue working to make health care available to all, in their own countries and regions, but also globally."
"A few weeks ago, in Brussels, I attended the Global Summit on Vaccination, under the auspices of the European Union and WHO. Many years of successful campaigns have led to the eradication of smallpox. Other diseases, most notably polio, are close to eradication. Yet some populations still have no access to vaccination. Worryingly, developed countries, are now facing a wave of skepticism about vaccination, including from some well-educated parents."
"In populations affected by conflict and by extreme poverty, we tend to the physical wounds and diseases. But what about a husband whose wife has just died in childbirth, whose parents will not recover from malaria, and whose baby will not survive even a few months? How is he to carry on, with the burden of his psychological trauma? Huge gaps and huge inequalities remain between rich and poor, in accessing counseling and treatment."
"We know that further deterioration of the air we breathe, the quality of our food, and life on the planet will have immense negative consequences for the attainment of SDG 3."
In the evening Mathilde & Philippe hosted a dinner for young civil servants at their home, the castle of Laeken.
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