A/HRC/29/33 HIV-infected people has saved 6.6 million lives since 1995. At the same time, access to child and maternal health care has improved steadily.3 65. Since the end of nineteenth century, science and the practice of medicine and public health have created enormous opportunities for preventing premature mortality and improving the health and well-being of individuals and societies. Many scientific discoveries have been successfully put into practice, resulting in an overall increase of life expectancy, a reduction in maternal and child mortality, a successful combat against many infectious diseases and a general improvement of the quality of life of the world’s population. 66. However, current rates of preventable deaths among newborns, children under 5 and adults are still unacceptably high. Universal health-care coverage is still a dream for many. The realization of the right to health is impeded by many factors, and most of them are related to inequalities, and selective approaches to human rights principles and existing scientific evidence. This can and must be addressed with the strong commitment by States and concerted efforts by all stakeholders. 67. In the context of the post-2015 agenda, the right to health framework can be a useful and powerful analytical and operational tool for the transition to the Sustainable Development Goals. And the Sustainable Development Goals can be instrumental for the effective and holistic realization of the right to health, if human rights are effectively incorporated in their conceptualization. B. The right to health and public policy 68. Primary care is to be strengthened in the twenty-first century as the crucial cornerstone of modern medicine and public health. The Alma-Ata Declaration and Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion should be reaffirmed and the root causes of the relative failure to achieve commitments to “health for all by 2000” should be sought. 69. Without a well-established infrastructure of primary health care, all achievements of modern science and the practice of medicine might be compromised and could be misused. When health policy chooses to prioritize specialized services, the latter tend to function without the necessary ethical and human rights safeguards, leading to barriers in access to services for people and groups who have more health needs or to the ineffective use of those services, or to both. 70. The Special Rapporteur is concerned that primary care and the modern public health approach often lose the battle for resources to the biomedical model and vertical programmes of treatment of diseases through specialized health care. When resources are allocated to specialized health care, that may reinforce power asymmetries and funding imbalances, which often favour powerful groups representing vested interests in the health sector and industry. States, when meeting their obligation to protect, respect and fulfil the enjoyment of the right to health, should be aware of, and be willing and able to address, such power asymmetries. They should also provide mechanisms for independent monitoring, as such mechanisms are essential tools in ensuring accountability. 71. If that does not happen, power asymmetries and imbalances may lead to scenarios where (a) preference in allocating budgets is given to expensive biomedical technologies 3 12 Millennium Development Report 2014, quoted in “The road to dignity by 2030: ending poverty, transforming all lives and protecting the planet”, synthesis report of the Secretary-General on the post-2015 sustainable development agenda (A/69/700), para. 17.