目前，我们面临着史前未有的与我们关系如此密切的经济危机，其波及范围很广，全球都受其影响。这场危机正值全球卫生承诺空前高涨之时，我们正在以有史以来最大的雄心壮志努力在全世界减少贫穷并更加均衡和公平地分配现代社会的利益，包括与卫生有关的利益——即实现千年发展目标。这个时候在医疗卫生方面该以怎样的心态和举措来应对经济危机？下面是世界卫生组织总干事陈冯富珍博士的呼吁。

We face a severe financial crisis of unprecedented dimensions in a world that has never before been so closely connected and interdependent. The consequences are global. The situation is volatile. The current financial crisis is rapidly becoming an economic crisis and threatens to become a social crisis in many countries.

The crisis comes at a time when commitment to global health has never been higher. It comes in the midst of the most ambitious drive in history to reduce poverty and distribute the benefits of our modern society, including those related to health, more evenly and fairly in this world - the Millennium Development Goals.

A previous effort to use health as the route to socioeconomic development, launched in 1978, was followed almost immediately by a fuel crisis, soaring oil prices, and the debt crisis of the early 1980s. In the international response to these crises, mistakes were made when budgets were shifted away from investments in the social sectors, most notably health and education. Many countries are still suffering the legacy of these errors.

It is not yet clear what the current financial crisis will mean for low-income and emerging economies, but many predictions are highly pessimistic. In the face of a global recession, fiscal pressures in affluent countries may prompt cuts to official development assistance. Worse still, is the prospect of cuts in social spending - health, education and social protection - that many countries, especially low-income countries, may be forced to undertake. Both of these responses have occurred in the past. And both could be as equally devastating for health, development, security and prosperity as they were in the past.