Wednesday, August 24, 2011

61st WHO Regional Committee for Africa session scheduled

Minister Badgie Head Gambian Delegation
The Sixty-First Session of the World Health Organisation Regional Committee for Africa will open in Cote d’Ivoire from the 29th August to 2nd September 2011. According to a media dispatch from the WHO Country office, the conference will gather African Health ministers and experts to discuss wide range of issues.

Fatim Badjie, the minister of Health and Social Welfare is expected to head the Gambian delegation to the meeting. Held annually in the month of September, the regional committee is the supreme decision-making body of the WHO in the African region, which takes stock of progress in health development in the continent as well as charting new ways, in the form of resolutions, for health advancement.

Delegates from the 46 countries of WHO in the African region are expected to attend as well as a host of international organisations/institutions, civil society organisations and individuals from within and outside the African continent.


Among the issues to be discussed in this year’s meeting are: the 2010 annual report of the Regional Director on the work of WHO in the African Region; health financing; public health emergencies; Measles elimination and progress report on poliomyelitis in the African Region; implementation of the health related MDGs, and in particular, progress report on the Road map for accelerating the attainment if the MDG goals related to maternal and new born health in Africa; health promotion and WHO Programme Budget for 2012 and 2013.

In addition to the core business of the meeting, health ministers will hold side meetings with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and the Global Alliance for Vaccine Initiative Secretariat (GAVI) to discuss lessons learnt from Round 10 and the preparation of Round 11, and sustainability of vaccination programmes respectively. The African Federation of Public Health Associations will also be launched during the meeting.

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