A/HRC/37/74 comprehensive approach to public health challenges required broader social measures, including tackling stigma and discrimination. Epidemics had also made clear that the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health enjoyed a symbiotic relationship with other human rights. Health could only be improved when other human rights were upheld. 7. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said that the human rights principles of non-discrimination, participation and accountability were essential to achieving more sustainable, inclusive and effective health systems. Recent outbreaks of Ebola, Zika and cholera had highlighted the importance of basic infrastructure for the enjoyment of the right to health, the need to uphold the right to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services and the need for special protection for health facilities during armed conflicts. Focusing on the health of adolescents and supporting health workers as human rights defenders made societies more sustainable. The 2030 Agenda provided an opportunity to accelerate efforts to integrate all human rights, including the right to development, and public health considerations into policies at every level. III. Summary of proceedings A. Keynote speakers and general statements 8. The Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), Michel Sidibé, recalled that almost 40 years before the establishment of the Social Forum, people living with HIV had challenged indifference and created, championed and led a transformative movement from a focus on disease to a people-centred approach. Activists had broken the “conspiracy of silence”, which had helped change the trajectory of the epidemic and make treatment more affordable. That progress in the HIV response had been made possible by adopting an approach grounded in human rights. While 20 million people were currently on antiretroviral therapy and AIDS-related deaths had dropped sharply, millions still awaited treatment. Moreover, global solidarity and shared responsibility were being questioned, and civil society space was shrinking. Stigma and discrimination discouraged people from accessing prevention services, especially in the cases of transgender and gay persons and people who injected drugs. A transformative global agenda, powerful scientific and medical tools, strong and binding global human rights frameworks, and programmes that worked to advance health all imposed a moral and a legal responsibility to act. 9. The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, spoke about the importance of achieving universal health coverage to address impending health challenges. Universal health coverage improved everyone’s health, reduced poverty, created jobs, drove inclusive economic growth, promoted gender equality and protected people against epidemics. However, social barriers prevented many people from getting the care they needed, and included discrimination against adolescents, refugees, sex workers, drug users, people in prison, the poor and people with minority sexual orientation. Robust health systems should provide the services people said they needed, not those that providers decided they needed. Civil society organizations, community groups, Governments, United Nations agencies and for-profit companies should work together to fulfil the political mandate of the Sustainable Development Goals to improve health outcomes and transform health systems. 10. An advocacy officer at AfricAid Zimbabwe, Loyce Maturu, shared her experience as a young person living with HIV and tuberculosis. Living with HIV was difficult due to stigma, obstacles in access to care and lack of confidentiality in health facilities. There was a need for evidence-based, differentiated care models and to ensure that there were AIDSfree generations. Investment was required in peer-led interventions and comprehensive sexual and reproductive health education. Young people living with HIV needed not only treatment but also interventions that supported and motivated them to stay on treatment and remain healthy. The fight against HIV could be won only by believing in the voices of affected populations and by making them partners and decision makers. 4