WHO passes Bangladesh resolution on autism

The World Health Assembly on Friday passed a Bangladesh-pushed resolution on autism in Geneva.

Health and Family Welfare Minister Mohammed Nasim told bdnews24.com over telephone that it had been “a great success” for Bangladesh.

Bangladesh placed the resolution last year that received immediate board approval.

The annual Assembly is the supreme decision-making body of the World Health Organization that passes such resolutions.

Passing a resolution means all 194 member states agree with it.

“Now the neuro-development disorder has received global attention (in real term),” Nasim said in his immediate reaction.

“Every country will come up with technical and financial support,” he said.

There will be “comprehensive and coordinated efforts” for the management of autism spectrum disorder as per the resolution, he said.

Autism appears in the first three years of life and affects the brain’s normal development, hampering social and communication skills.

Those who suffer cannot pick up self-care tasks – dressing, self-feeding, using toilet and others – by watching and imitating. They do not make eye contact and have a single-track thought process.

But due to lack of trained manpower, many countries, particularly the developing ones, miss early diagnosis, aggravating their sufferings.

Many countries, mostly those in South Asia including Bangladesh, do not even know the extent of the disorder.

But a latest US study finds one in every 68 children to be autistic - a rate 30 percent higher than what it was three years ago.

Bangladesh is globally known for its campaign for the well-being of autistic children.

Owing to its initiative, the United Nations and the Regional Committee Meeting of South East Asian Region of WHO had earlier adopted two resolutions on autism.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s daughter, Saima Wazed Hossain, who is a US-licensed school psychologist, spearheads the campaign.

She is also accompanying the minister in the Assembly.

To woo support for the resolution from member states, she also spoke on the sidelines and put forward recommendations about what the countries needed to do for those special children.

Better known as Putul, her nickname, she suggested “a holistic approach” that would enable “access to medical, educational and employment opportunities throughout their entire life”.

She urged all countries to help develop “culturally sensitive and economically feasible” assessment and intervention techniques for those special children.

Putul pitched for policies and programmes “based on scientific evidence and supportive of families, and not just the individual, and enable the inclusion of persons with neurodevelopment disorder in all aspects of society”.

The health minister also called upon every country to support the resolution for the future of those special kids on the sidelines.

“It is fair that we adopt this resolution in this assembly and, thereby, set up a clear roadmap for future leadership in alleviating socio-economic burden as well as tremendous sufferings of the millions of children affected by autism globally,” he had said.