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Healthy ageing key topic at 78th WHO Regional Committee meeting
View(s):- Sri Lanka to showcase elderly care achievements as three-day meeting kicks off tomorrow
Sri Lanka, with its rapidly-ageing population, will have the opportunity to showcase significant achievements in elderly care through the strengthening of primary healthcare, as the curtain rises on an important health meeting tomorrow (October 13) in Colombo.
Sri Lanka will also put forward a resolution on the same subject for the whole region, at the three-day 78th WHO Regional Committee (RC) for South-East Asia.
WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus; Officer-In-Charge for WHO South-East Asia, Dr. Catharina Boehme; and other WHO experts along with health ministers and senior officials from the 10 member states are scheduled to attend this meeting to set the health agenda in the region for the coming years.
Home to 2 billion people, the member states of the RC for South-East Asia are Bangladesh, Bhutan, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor-Leste.
This regional governing body meeting is expected to adopt resolutions on priority health issues and review progress against resolutions from previous years.
With ageing being put under the spotlight, the member states and WHO are expected to adopt a Declaration on Healthy Ageing. By 2050, people above 60 years of age are expected to account for 20.9% of the region’s population, against 11.3% in 2024.
The provisional findings of the 2024 Census in Sri Lanka have found that this age-group has increased to over 18% from 12% in 2012 in this country.
This has brought to the fore the need for health and social systems to be adequately prepared to harness this demographic shift to maximize its advantage.
With the region continuing to bear a disproportionate burden of one-third of all global tobacco users with over 280 million adult smokeless tobacco users and around 11 million adolescent tobacco users, another focus of the meeting will be strategies to combat the use of smokeless tobacco, electronic cigarettes, nicotine pouches and areca nut.
The growing use of novel nicotine products, such as electronic cigarettes and nicotine pouches, and the widespread socio-cultural use of areca nut, have further compounded this challenge.
The meeting is also due to discuss expanding the corpus of the South-East Asia Regional Health Emergency Fund (SEARHEF) and accelerating action against antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
With the region being vulnerable to natural disasters, SEARHEF supports lifesaving interventions in the immediate aftermath of a health emergency and has supported 49 emergencies since it was set up in 2008. The fund’s mandate was expanded in 2016 to support emergency preparedness.
Accelerating action against AMR by aligning regional policy actions with global commitments, would be another priority issue at the meeting. The recent global and regional milestones such as the UN General Assembly’s Political Declaration on Antimicrobial Resistance have created renewed momentum in this connection.
Other critical issues to be taken up at the meeting will include reinforcing mental health, well-being and quality of life; reaffirming investment in women, girls, adolescents and people with vulnerabilities; realizing technology and innovations; and raising capacity, knowledge management and research.
Some of the Progress Reports on selected Regional Committee Resolutions which will be discussed include:
- Building health systems resilience to climate change and Extension of the Framework for Action on building health systems resilient to climate change in the region 2017–2022, till 2027.
- SEAHEARTS: Accelerating prevention and control of cardiovascular diseases in the region.
- Measles and rubella elimination with interruption of transmission of indigenous measles and rubella virus by 2026.
Meanwhile, the pre-RC events scheduled for today are – Lived realities, policy priorities: A participatory dialogue on healthy ageing and Launch of the WHO SEARO Youth Council: Amplifying youth voices for health.
Interestingly, walking the talk, the delegates will engage in a half-hour of physical activity from 6.30 to 7.00 a.m. on Tuesday and Wednesday.
| Push to boost paediatric anaesthesia & surgical care in the region As 1 in 4 of the world’s children is living in South-East Asia, a deep look will be taken at strengthening paediatric anaesthesia and surgical care in the region. A major official side event on the very first day (tomorrow) of the Regional Committee on this critical subject, will hear the keynote address being delivered by Sri Lanka’s Health Minister Dr. Nalinda Jayatissa. Co-hosted by the Health Ministry in partnership with the World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesiologists (WFSA) and Smile Train, the event will bring together health leaders to explore collaborative strategies for building stronger, more equitable paediatric surgical systems. WFSA will also present a powerful joint statement to the Regional Committee, calling on member states to improve access to safe, timely and affordable It will seek to address the shortages of trained providers, investments in infrastructure and ensuring more equitable service distribution across the region. Consultant Cardiothoracic Anaesthesiologist & Intensivist, Dr. Kumudini Ranatunga, will represent WFSA at this event. | |
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