Report from the 72nd WHO South-East Asia Regional Committee meeting
Report of RC 72 (2-6th Sep 2019), New Delhi, India
The 72nd WHO South-East Asia Regional Committee meeting was held from 2-6th September 2019 in New Delhi. The meeting was attended by 11 countries from WHO’s South-East Asia region comprising of Bangladesh, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste which represent a quarter of the world’s population. Besides this representative of the United Nations and Specialized Agencies, intergovernmental organizations, representatives from non-governmental organizations in official relations with WHO, observers, Ambassadors/High Commissioners and Special Invitees graced the occasion.
The inaugural session was moderated by Mr James Chau, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for the Sustainable Development Goals and Health. The inaugural address was delivered by Ms Preeti Sudan, Secretary Health and Family Welfare Government of India. This was followed by an address by H.E. Mr Upendra Yadav, Minister of Health and Population, Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal. Address of the Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was delivered by Dr Bernhard Schwartländer, Chef de Cabinet, WHO headquarters.
Significant achievements by member States during the past years were applauded namely reductions in neonatal mortality and maternal mortality across the region by at least 60% and 70%, respectively; retention of polio-free status since 2014, and the notable elimination of maternal and neonatal tetanus. It was mentioned during the address that the Region was moving towards becoming the “disease elimination capital” of the world.
Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia Region mentioned that the Regional Committee is “an occasion to take stock, review progress, discuss and update policies and technical strategies, and to appraise and approve budgets, and also about reaffirming a joint sense of purpose and solidarity between countries”. Dr Poonam Singh described UHC as “the defining mission of public health across the world and the bedrock of health policy across the Region”. She presented her report on the “Work of WHO in the South-East Asia Region for the period 1 January–31 December 2018”, highlighting the many public health achievements and successes both by the Organization and the Member States during this period, while reiterating the several challenges and unfinished goals ahead. She focused on the mantra of “Sustain, Accelerate, and Innovate”. Her report addressed important issues like TB, tobacco control, NCD’s, mental health, alcohol use and antimicrobial resistance, emergency preparedness etc. She mentioned that approximately 800 million people across the Region still do not have full coverage of essential health services. About 16% of the population was spending more than 10% of their total income on catastrophic health expenditure and 3% of the population was pushed into poverty every year due to exorbitant out-of-pocket expenditure on health. Dr Singh concluded by mentioning that despite challenges, WHO will achieve the goals it has set for itself by insisting on strong, responsive leadership by creating partnerships that fuel fresh and innovative thinking about primary health care services, health systems quality and financing strategies.
H.E. Dr Harsh Vardhan, Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Science & Technology and Earth Sciences, Government of India highlighted that India was on the brink of a health-care revolution. He said that the country was firmly committed to achieving universal health coverage as articulated in its National Health Policy and reaching the target of “Health for All” without compromises.
Dr Harshvardhan apprised the audience about Ayushman Bharat (“Long Live India”) programme and the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) which were launched as India’s approach to universal health coverage. He mentioned about several new initiatives like the “Fit India” movement which is aimed at encouraging people to include physical activity and sports routinely in their everyday lives and “Eat Right India” campaign to fight lifestyle diseases such as hypertension, obesity and diabetes.
In his address, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization acknowledged the achievements made by five countries in the Region – Bhutan, DPR Korea, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Timor-Leste – who have eliminated measles; and six countries – Bangladesh, Bhutan, DPR Korea, Maldives, Sri Lanka and Timor-Leste – who have controlled rubella. He lauded that since 2000 due to high vaccination rates a 75% reduction in mortality due to measles has been achieved. He spoke of elimination of cervical cancer as a public health problem and the need for it to be introduced in national immunisation programs. Dr Tedros appreciated the progress made on emergency preparedness and mentioned that Delhi Declaration on Emergency Preparedness adopted by the Regional Committee would be a “vital step forward towards making the Region safer for all its people”. He spoke about the high burden of tuberculosis deaths in the region and how efforts are being made by WHO SEAR to tackle this problem. In conclusion, the Director-General emphasized the following three points. Firstly, he urged the Member States to mobilize domestic resources to invest in primary health care by raising taxes on tobacco products, alcohol, sugar-sweetened beverages and other products that harm health, secondly, he urged Member States to invest in emergency preparedness and lastly he reminded Member States to catalyse political commitment to UHC.
This was followed by a ministerial round table on emergency preparedness, program budget implementation and review. Subsequent sessions were dedicated to detailed discussions on Policy and technical matters namely annual report on monitoring progress on UHC and health-related SDGs, strengthening IHR and health emergency capacities through the implementation of national action plans, regional Action Plan on Programmatic Management of Latent TB Infection (LTBI) and Global Strategy for TB Research and Innovation etc.
Various other progress reports on selected Regional Committee resolutions namely: South-East Asia Regional Health Emergency Fund, expanding the scope of the South-East Asia Regional Health Emergency Fund Antimicrobial Resistance, Patient Safety contributing to sustainable universal health coverage, Challenges in polio eradication, Colombo Declaration on strengthening health systems to accelerate delivery of NCD services at the primary health care level etc. The working committees also developed a Regional Snake-bite Prevention and Control Plan of Action.
Patient safety contributing to sustainable universal health coverage was one of the important agenda items. The participating members acknowledged that patient safety is core to the high-quality health systems needed to achieve universal health coverage. Poor safety and quality of care reduces trust in services and discourages their use, wastes scarce resources and imposes high costs. The committee felt that progress towards UHC will be seriously constrained without improvement in the quality and safety of both primary health care services and inpatient care. Member States underlined the advantage of implementing low-cost interventions. Measures taken across the Member States to improve quality and safety reporting and monitoring systems, including adverse events were discussed at length.
The Committee noted that the upcoming first World Patient Safety Day on 17 September 2019 presents a new opportunity to strengthen awareness and to patient safety and launch of key national initiatives.
The Committee acknowledged the universal recognition of the importance of integration of traditional medicines into the conventional health-care delivery systems to facilitate the achievement of universal health coverage, this was launched as the Delhi Declaration.
The meeting ended with a review of the draft resolutions and adoption of same. The seventy-third session of the Committee will be held in Thailand from the 7th – 11th September 2020.
Summarised by:
Vikram Datta
President NQOCN, India
ISQua Expert, India
Director Professor, Department of Neonatology
Lady Hardinge Medical College
New Delhi 110001, India