UN General Assembly Adopts 1st Resolution on PLWRD

On December 16th 2021, the United Nations General Assembly has formally adopted the UN Resolution on Addressing the Challenges of Persons Living with a Rare Disease and their Families. 

You can find the press release here

This is the first ever UN text to give full visibility to the over 300 million Persons Living with a Rare Disease (PLWRD) worldwide and calls for action to address the specific challenges faced by PLWRD and their families. This is an important milestone for the community of people living with HoFH and FCS and their families across Europe and at FH Europe we very much welcome this positive development.

The Resolution is co-sponsored by an unprecedented 54 countries, and was adopted by consensus by all 193 UN Member States. The document focuses on the importance of non-discrimination and the key pillars of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, including health, access to education and decent work, reducing poverty, tackling gender inequality, and supporting participation in society. This is a major shift in international policy which places the needs of PLWRD firmly on the agenda of the UN and its agencies (UNICEF, UN WOMEN, UNDP).

You can visit the Resolution4Rare toolkit for visual elements in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese and download the UN Resolution logo in each language.

EURORDIS, RDI and Rare Disease Day will also be posting on social media today and over the coming weeks on · Twitter, · LinkedIn, · Facebook. The next stage of the campaign will focus on the impact of the Resolution, and how it can support rare disease advocacy.

Should you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to Anja Helm anja.helm@eurordis.org at EURORDIS.