The joint inaugural ceremony of the 32nd Meeting of Ministers of Health of Countries of the World Health Organization (WHO) South-East Asia Region and 67th Session of the WHO Regional Committee for South-East Asia is set to be held in Dhaka this morning.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will inaugurate the 4-day event as chief guest at Sonargaon Hotel in the capital, with Health Minister Mohammed Nasim presiding over the programme.
Dr Margaret Chang, director general of the WHO, Dr Punam Khetrapal Singh, regional director for South-East Asia, ministers from 11 member countries and other high officials are in Bangladesh to take part in the programme.
More than 200 foreign delegates, including health ministers and secretaries of the 11 member countries, will be attending the meetings from September 9 to September 12.
At a press briefing on the event, the health minister asked all political parties to refrain from activities that could tarnish the country’s international image.
Nasim told reporters the WHO would be giving Saima Wazed Hossain Putul, the prime minister’s daughter, the South-East Asia Region Award for Excellence in Public Health.
She had been selected for the award in recognition of her “glorious and outstanding” contributions in creating mass awareness about neuro-developmental disorders and autism in Bangladesh, he said.
Dr Punam Khetra Pal will present the award to Putul at 7:30pm on September 10.
Putul is the chairperson of the new national advisory committee on autism, meant to raise awareness of the developmental disorder in Bangladesh and in South Asia.
Senior advisers to the health ministers of the South-East Asian regional committee met yesterday; the ministers will meet today.
The 67th Session of the WHO Regional Committee for South-East Asia will be held from September 10 to September 12. A side event on autism, with the prime minister as chief guest and her daughter in the chair, will also be held.
Items on the agenda at the 32nd health minister meeting include a follow-up of the Delhi Declaration on blood pressure adopted last year, responses to vector borne diseases which are expected to be formalised as the Dhaka Declaration, and the effects of climate change on health.
The 67th regional committee meeting is expected to review the annual report by the regional director, to discuss WHO reforms, the organisation’s budget, birth and death registration, drug use, support for surgical and anaesthesia services, viral hepatitis, health worker training and education, nutrition services and food security, injury prevention, non-communicable diseases and HIV-AIDS.
A memorandum of understanding, or MOU, is expected to be signed with India to increase mutual cooperation regarding traditional medicine. The Maldives is interested in importing medicine and recruiting doctors from Bangladesh and an MOU is slated to be signed on the matter, the health minister said.
