Leaving No Child Behind: Advancing Action on Childhood-Onset Heart Disease in Europe
This constituency statement was delivered by Katie Kraft under Agenda Item – General Discussion – at the Seventy-Sixth session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe.
Honorable Chairperson,
Distinguished Ministers and Delegates,
The World Heart Federation and the European Heart Network welcome WHO Europe’s commitment to promoting health across the life course, from birth to healthy and active ageing.
We commend Slovenia for its leadership in co-sponsoring the proposed World Health Assembly resolution on childhood-onset heart disease, formally submitted by Egypt and Kiribati for consideration by the 80th World Health Assembly in May 2027. We warmly encourage Member States in the Region to follow Slovenia’s lead and join the Dominican Republic, the Federated States of Micronesia, Guyana, Kuwait, Namibia, Nauru, Peru, Samoa, Tanzania, Thailand, Vanuatu, and Viet Nam as co-sponsors.
As discussions progress, Member States have a unique opportunity to help shape a global framework for action on a long-overlooked public health challenge. We urge Member States to recognize childhood-onset heart disease, including congenital heart disease and rheumatic heart disease, as a global health priority deserving greater attention. Despite advances in survival, these conditions remain insufficiently reflected in health policies and planning, contributing to delayed diagnosis, inequitable access to care, avoidable disability, and premature death for millions of children and adults worldwide.
The proposed resolution offers an opportunity to strengthen commitments to health promotion, disease prevention, early diagnosis, treatment, workforce capacity, health information systems, research, and equitable access to care across the life course. Addressing childhood-onset heart disease contributes directly to universal health coverage, health equity, maternal and child health, and the broader priorities on noncommunicable diseases and healthy ageing outlined in the Second European Programme of Work 2026-2030.
We encourage Member States across the European Region to engage actively in the upcoming negotiations and support efforts to elevate childhood-onset heart disease within global and regional health agendas. Broad engagement will be essential to ensuring that the resolution reflects the needs of countries and the millions of people living with childhood-onset heart disease around the world.
We also applaud Children’s HeartLink and the Global Coalition for Pediatric and Congenital Hearts for their instrumental roles in mobilizing civil society efforts to advance the resolution.
Together, we can help ensure that every child born with a heart condition, regardless of where they live, has the opportunity to survive and thrive. Thank you.