Good health and wellbeing are Goal 3 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, with the target of ensuring healthy lives and wellbeing for all people by 2030. 

COVID has "halted or reversed" progress toward global health goals and exacerbated inequities in healthcare, according to the latest UN SDG report, including reproductive care and mental health.  

In the wake of another pandemic, the FIF is meant to supply the needed funding so that resources used to fight other diseases aren't depleted. But the World Health Organization says that even COVID-related programs, like the Access to COVID Tools (ACT) Accelerator, which was set up in 2020, needs additional funding. 

"The FIF is being established at a moment when core global public health goods are seriously underfunded-in particular, the [ACT Accelerator], which plays a central role in addressing the current gross inequity in access to Covid testing, treatments, and vaccine between high-income countries and LMICs." read the WHO statement. "It is critical that the FIF does not undermine financing for existing urgent public health needs."

The One Campaign, which is focused on reducing poverty and preventable diseases, praised EU investment in the FIF fund, while maintaining that COVID is not the only problem that needs to be addressed. 

"[FIF investment] must be complemented with leadership to tackle the aftershocks of this pandemic — such as setbacks in AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria," said Emily Wigens, EU director at the ONE Campaign in a statement. "We have the tools and the knowledge to finish the fight against these deadly diseases — now we need political will."