SOCIETY
Azerbaijan`s delegation attends 65th session of World Health Assembly
Baku, May 22 (AZERTAC). Azerbaijan`s delegation led by Health Minister Ogtay Shiraliyev is attending the 65th session of World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva.
Several recent studies have advised the international community to look to BRICS countries, namely Brazil, the Russian Federation, India, China, and South Africa, as a way to maintain the momentum for better health.
In her address WHO Director-General Margaret Chan called for transition to universal health care and drew attention to the potential of the countries BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - in solving the problems of global health: “Several recent studies have advised the international community to look to BRICS countries as a way to maintain the momentum for better health”.
She said: “These countries have become the biggest suppliers of essential medicines, in affordable generic form, to the great benefit of the developing world. BRICS countries also offer an alternative model for health development, including technology transfer, based more on equal partnerships than on the traditional donor-recipient model”.
“The first decade of the 21st century has also acquired a label. Many describe it as the “golden age for health development”. In that golden decade, governments, in both donor and recipient countries, made the health agenda a top priority. Money for health development more than tripled. Substantial results followed, with a particularly strong impact on deaths from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and childhood illness”.
Chan added: “Just a few years ago, WHO estimated that surgical errors were killing around one million people worldwide each year. To address this problem, WHO adapted a simple checklist used by pilots in the airline industry, one of the safest industries in the world. The WHO Safe Surgery Checklist was introduced in 2008 and has since been widely applied, significantly reducing surgical errors. Studies suggest that, if fully implemented, nearly half of those one million deaths would be averted”.
WHO Director-General also touched on blood pressure problem: “WHO data show that rates of obesity nearly doubled in every region of the world from 1980 to 2008. Worldwide, one in three adults has raised blood pressure. One in ten adults has diabetes”.
The session also is expected to discuss the problem of early marriages.