Indian Health Minister Harsh Vardhan due in Dhaka

India’s minister for health and family welfare Dr Harsh Vardhan is due in Dhaka on Monday to attend meetings of the WHO and enhance bilateral cooperation with Bangladesh.

The Indian High Commission in Dhaka on Sunday said Harsh Vardhan would lead a strong delegation during his visit until Sep 12.

This is the first visit of the health minister and the third visit of a member of the India’s new cabinet after it assumed office on May 26.

Earlier, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and junior external affairs minister VK Singh visited Dhaka.

Secretary (Health) Lov Verma, Secretary of Department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) Nilanjan Sanyal, Director General (Health Services) Jagdish Prasad, and Director General of the Central Council for Research in Ayurveda Abhimanyu Kumar would accompany Vardhan.

A doctor by training, Vardhan will call on Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina during his visit and hold discussions with his counterpart Mohammed Nasim.

He earlier served as the health minister in Delhi and his performance is much lauded. .

The Indian High Commission says his meetings in Dhaka will help to furthering bilateral cooperation in the health sector.

Both sides will also sign a MoU on cooperation in the field of traditional systems of medicine and homoeopathy that India recently passed in its cabinet.

The initiative of cooperation in health was taken in Sep 2011 during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Dhaka visit.

That was the first move in this sector in 40 years’ of bilateral relationship between the two countries. The first MoU on cooperation was signed in February last year.

But no joint working group meeting has been held yet.

The India’s health minister will join other 10 ministers of the WHO Southeast Asia region including Bangladesh on Sep 9 at their 32nd internal meeting of this region.

The three-day annual meeting of the WHO regional statutory body, Regional Committee, will start from Sep 10.

Bangladesh, Bhutan, DPR Korea, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste are the members of its south-east Asia region (SEARO).

The UN agency says they will discuss key health issues of the region.

Bangladesh is hosting this meet for the second time. The first such meeting in Bangladesh was held in 2006. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate the meeting.

WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan and Regional Director for South-East Asia Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh will be present with WHO experts at both meetings.

The UN agency earlier said, this year, the ministers’ will focus on vector-borne diseases and are expected to adopt the “Dhaka Declaration” on this issue.

Globally, WHO estimates a billion people suffer from vector-borne diseases, and over a million die of them each year.

Bangladesh also suffers from six mosquito-borne diseases: malaria, kala-azar, filariasis, and Japanese encephalitis, dengue, and Chikungunya.

The 67th session of the Regional Committee that meets once a year will review the progress and regional implications of the World Health Assembly resolutions.

WHO Dhaka Office on Sunday in a media workshop ahead of the meetings said the committee would take up some technical issues like civil registration and vital statistics, traditional medicine, and WHO’s global campaign to cut the harmful use of alcohol to prevent and control lifestyle diseases.

It will also discuss the strengthening of emergency and essential surgical care and anaesthesia as a component of universal health coverage, and a regional strategy to improve the education and training of the health workforce.

Bangladesh will also organise different sessions on the sidelines. Autism will be one of the key issues.

Prime Minister Hasina is expected to join the session along with her daughter Saima Hossain Wazed who spearheads the autism campaign in Bangladesh.

Known by her nickname, Putul, in Bangladesh, Saima is a US-licensed school psychologist.