GLOBAL COMMUNIQUÉ
Published 5 November 2026 · Open for signature
We, the undersigned former heads of government, ministers, legislators and leaders in global health, call on the governments of the world to act with urgency on Alzheimer’s disease as a global health priority, and to make prevention the foundation of that action.
Alzheimer’s begins in the brain ten to twenty years before the first symptoms. Science is now moving into that window at a transformative pace. Blood tests can increasingly detect the disease’s biology. The tools to identify people at increased risk are advancing rapidly. Artificial intelligence is accelerating all of it, from the discovery of biomarkers to the design of trials. The first disease-modifying therapies are approved for early symptomatic Alzheimer’s disease, and trials are now testing whether intervening before symptoms appear can stop the disease from taking hold. Nearly half of all dementia cases could be prevented or delayed by modifying risk factors over a lifetime. The opportunity to act before the disease takes hold is real, and it is now.
The cost of waiting is unsustainable. More than 57 million people live with dementia, a number expected to reach 139 million by 2050. The fastest increases will come in lower- and middle-income countries, particularly across Africa, Asia and Latin America, where health, care, data and social-protection systems are least equipped to absorb them. The global cost already exceeds $1.3 trillion a year, and it falls disproportionately on women, who are the large majority of patients and provide around 70 percent of care hours.
Alzheimer’s and related dementias are a pandemic caused by demography. Investment in low cost diagnostics and solutions to prevent Alzheimer’s is not a cost but an investment in the social and economic health of nations.
The economic impacts of innovative diagnostics and prevention solutions point in one direction. Decades of evidence in human development show that the return on public investment is highest when made earliest in the life course, and that it falls with every year of delay. Preventing or delaying dementia preserves years of healthy, independent life while reducing pressure on families, health systems and long-term care. Yet most health systems remain organized around diagnosing and managing disease only after it has become clinically apparent. The prevention of dementia belongs at the center of the global health agenda alongside the prevention of other noncommunicable diseases. We have an opportunity to move investment upstream, toward risk reduction, brain health and earlier detection and intervention.
Governments have led before. Each of our countries has invested in this work, through national plans, research funding, or advocacy in international forums, and each of our countries is deeply affected by this disease. Internationally, the lead has passed from hand to hand. France made Alzheimer’s a national and European priority in 2008. The United Kingdom convened the G8 Dementia Summit in 2013 and created the World Dementia Council and catalyzed the annual Lausanne Conference. Japan put ageing and dementia at the centre of its G20 presidency in 2019. The Netherlands has convened regularly. Each of those moments mattered, yet none of them has created a sustainable path to prevention applicable throughout the G20 and beyond. The problem is not a shortage of commitment. It is that every advance has depended on a particular government at a particular moment, and none has outlived it. What this work requires is a platform that survives political cycles.
We therefore call on the G20, and on all governments, to:
Make prevention the organizing principle of national Alzheimer’s and brain health policy, shifting from a model that responds to symptomatic [established] disease toward one that reaches people earlier.
Sustain this commitment beyond any single government, through a standing G20 public-private mechanism with regular review, so that the leadership of individual heads of state or CEO’s of companies is no longer lost when they leave office.
Direct the global artificial intelligence agenda at the brain. Governments are now writing the rules for artificial intelligence. In doing so they are deciding whether the technology will extend human brain capabilities [cognition] or replace them, and that choice is being made largely by default. We ask them to make it deliberately, and to direct the technology at the diseases that take cognition away. AI is already accelerating biomarker discovery, trial design and the detection of risk years before symptoms appear, and philanthropy and industry have begun to fund that work at scale. Governments should meet it with access to population-scale health data under strong safeguards, with standards for validating AI-derived diagnostics, and with a requirement that the resulting tools reach lower- and middle-income countries rather than widening the gap. An agenda that governs artificial intelligence without directing it at human cognition is an incomplete agenda.
Adopt a life-course approach to brain health, addressing modifiable risk and from childhood through old age, with brain health embedded in ordinary preventive care alongside cardiovascular, metabolic and cancer risk.
Ensure timely access to appropriate early detection and diagnosis, including validated blood-based biomarkers and emerging diagnostics, supported by professional education, evidence-based guidelines and reimbursement.
Invest in the data and evidence that prevention requires, including in populations and regions where none exist today, and in the specific biology and needs of women.
Commit to global equity, so that innovation reaches lower- and middle-income countries on terms suited to local needs, rather than as an afterthought to wealthy nations.
The G20 has already recognized dementia as a global policy priority. It did not hold. What is missing is sustained accountability.
Science has shown us where the opportunity lies. It cannot bring prevention to the population. That requires political leadership that is consistent, cross-sector, global, and accountable to the patients and families who have waited long enough.
We commit our names to this call, and we invite the leaders of the world to join us.
This call originated at the thirteenth Lausanne Workshop on Alzheimer’s Disease in October 2026. It remains open for signature.
SIGNATORIES
Julio Frenk, former Minister of Health of Mexico
Lia Tadesse Gebremedhin, former Minister of Health of Ethiopia
Facundo Manes, Neurologist and Neuroscientist; Former Member of the Argentine Chamber of Deputies and former Chair of its Committee on Science, Technology and Productive Innovation.
Chiril Gaburici, former Prime Minister of Moldova and former Minister of Economy and Infrastructure
Michel Sidibé, former Minister of Health and Social Affairs of Mali, Special Envoy for the African Medicines Agency, former United Nations Under-Secretary-General and former Executive Director of UNAIDS
Mankeur Ndiaye, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Senegal, former United Nations Under-Secretary-General and former Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in the Central African Republic
Nora Berra, former Minister for Seniors and former Minister of Health, France
Dr. Nicolas Meda, former Minister of Health of Burkina Faso
Abdou Fall, former Minister for Health and Medical Prevention, Senegal
Dorothée Kinde-Gazzard, former Minister for Health, Benin
Assane Diop, former Minister for Health and Social Action, Senegal
Modou Diagne Fada, former Minister for Health, Senegal
Moustafa Mijiyawa, former Minister for Health and Public Hygiene, Togo
Ahmed Robleh Abdilleh, former Minister for Health, Djibouti
Oumar Diouhé Bah, former Minister for Health and Public Hygiene, Guinea
Abdoulaye Diouf Sarr, former Minister for Health and Social Action, Senegal
Samira Friaa, former Minister for Public Health, Tunisia
Conny Helder former Minister of Long Term Care and Sports, Former Minister of Health, Welfare and Sports, The Netherlands
Mabingue Ngom, former Regional Director for West and Central Africa, United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)
Pierre Maudet, State Councillor of Geneva in charge of Health and Mobility, Switzerland