Global health. The current scenario and future perspectives

249 16. Health systems and their challenges in a world of increasing complexity Óscar Arteaga Herrera The field of health policies is related to areas that involve decisions, plans and actions at different levels of society with the purpose of achieving specific health objectives. More specifically, it can be stated that health policies are expressed in courses of action (or inaction) that affect health institutions and organizations, as well as the services provided and the financing modalities of the health system (Buse et al., 2012). Converging within the broad field of public health, in its disciplinary development, health policies are oriented towards both population health problems and the factors that determine them, as well as efforts to improve responses to these problems through the organization of healthcare systems and services. The commitment of United Nations Member States expressed in the Sustainable Development Goals, as part of Agenda 2030, has at its core the will to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure peace and well-being for all people (UN, 2015). Universal health coverage must be understood as a fundamental component in this global effort based on principles such as leaving no one behind and ensuring human rights for all (UN, 2015). Conceptually, universal health coverage implies that everyone can access quality healthcare without suffering economic difficulties associated with payment for care (WHO, 2013). This is the foundation underlying WHO’s Director-General’s statement to the World Health Assembly in May 2012 when she affirmed that universal health coverage “is perhaps the most powerful concept public health has to offer” (Chan, 2012). Previously, the WHO had dedicated its World Health Report in 2010 to the topic of health system financing as the pathway to universal over age (WHO, 2010). In the horizon established by Agenda 2030, in January 2020, the SARS-CoV-2 virus was officially identified by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (China CDC) as the causative agent of the outbreak that began in Wuhan in November 2019 (Mizumoto et al., 2020) and three months later, on March 11 th , 2020, the WHO declared Covid-19 a pandemic (WHO, 2020a). Thus, Covid-19, defined as the most serious global health threat since the Spanish influenza of 1918-1919 (Ferguson et al., 2020), is becoming a major obstacle on the path to sustainable development goals and universal health coverage. Since its emergence, Covid-19 has had a significant health impact,