Bangladesh eyes regional health cooperation

Bangladesh is eyeing regional cooperation in the health sector as Dhaka is set to host from Tuesday the WHO Southeast Asia regional meeting for the second time.

Health ministers or their deputies of the nine countries of the 11-nation region including Bangladesh have already arrived in Dhaka for their 32nd annual meeting.

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate the conference which will follow the three-day Regional Committee meeting.

The WHO Director-General Margaret Chan and Southeast Asia (SEARO) Regional Director Poonam Khetrapal Singh have also arrived.

Bangladesh, Bhutan, North Korea, India, Indonesia, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste are the members of the SEARO.

Indonesia’s Vice-Minister for Health Ali Ghufron Mukti will arrive on Wednesday.

Health Minister Mohammed Nasim ahead of the meeting at a press briefing on Monday said they would look toward “deepening co-operation among the regional countries”.

“We’ll sign several agreements (with the regional countries) on the sidelines,” he said.

A co-operation agreement with India on traditional medicine will be signed on Tuesday while with the Maldives, Nasim said, they would sign agreement on medical education.

He also broke “good news” for Bangladesh.

Prime Minister’s daughter Saima Wazed Hossain, also an expert member of the WHO Director-General’s Committee on Mental Health, will be awarded ‘WHO Excellence Award’ for her contribution in public health.

The regional director has introduced the award for the first time in two categories – individual and institutional.

Minister Nasim said they would organise a sidelines meeting on autism to raise awareness about the need of a specific action plan to address the growing burden of neuro-development disorders.

The health ministers in their meeting would focus on a key public health issue – vector-borne diseases – this region is battling.

Nasim said a “Dhaka Declaration” would also be adopted 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 Regional Committee Meeting will review the progress and regional implications of the World Health Assembly resolutions.

The UN agency says the committee will 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.

The WHO SEARO countries are known for their diversity.

“We belong to a Region that is blessed with some of the best health experts, state-of-the-art collaborating centres, finest medical facilities and a booming pharmaceutical industry,” the Regional Director Khetrapal Singh in her vision statement ahead of the meeting said.

“We will promote inter-country cooperation,” she said.

She said her vision was to partner all “in eliminating gross health inequalities and enhancing human welfare”.