[1] In addition to his native Polish, Archbishop Zimowski speaks Italian, German, English, French and Russian.

In January 2011 Archbishop Zimowski said that "Leprosy, in fact, after the upgrading of effective pharmacological therapies, witnessed a notable reduction of the lethal infection, but continues to cause suffering, diminution and social exclusion.

"In all ages and civilizations, the fate of the leprosy sufferer is marginalization, being deprived of any type of social life, condemned to seeing his body disintegrate until death comes.

On 18 May 2011, in a speech to the annual assembly of the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, he said that the world seemed "stalled in the status quo where the rich people have higher levels of coverage, while most of the poor people miss out, and [even] those who do have access often incur high, sometimes catastrophic costs in paying for services and medicine."

Zimowski said "more countries, especially those with emerging economies, are moving towards universal coverage," thanks also to "good policies that promote equity.

Therefore my delegation strongly believes that in the endeavor to promote universal coverage, fundamental values such as equity, human rights and social justice need to become explicit policy objectives".

The archbishop made an appeal for high-income countries to show greater solidarity toward poorer nations in order to overcome funding shortfalls in health.