by Playfuls Staff |
2nd April 2007
The World Health Organization (WHO) launched a coordinating centre on Monday to improve international health security amid heightened threats from emerging diseases and the danger [more] posed by bioterrorism.
Margaret Chan, WHO's executive director, marked World Health Day by meeting with Singapore's top leaders prior to a wide-ranging debate aimed at challenging participants to confront the public health, business and diplomatic obstacles to improved cross-border cooperation.
"The uncertainty and destructive potential of disease outbreaks and acute public health emergencies give them a high public and political profile," said Chan, who met with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Minister of Health Khaw Boon Wan, Senior Minister of State Balaji Sadasivan and Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs Raymond Lim.
Chan, Lee, Norway's Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Store and Philip Chen, chief executive of Cathay Pacific Airways, were scheduled to participate in the debate later Monday before political, business and opinion leaders.
"Globalization has increased countries' vulnerability and interdependence," said Store. "Health issues are among the major challenges that call for stronger strategic focus."
Threats to collective health security also include environmental change, sudden and intense humanitarian emergencies caused by natural disasters, chemical spills or radioactive accidents, and the impacts of AIDS, WHO said.
"Cooperation among nations is crucial, for we all have a reponsibility to one another," Lee said in noting the theme of World Health Day, international health security, is apt given the global health landscape.
A WHO document noted that 134.6 million people were affected by international crises and humanitarian emergencies in 2006 and 21,342 were killed by natural disasters.
Turning to economic impacts, it noted that the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak cost Asian countries 60 billion US dollars in gross expenditures and business losses in the second quarter of 2003 alone.
People are dying, upwards of 60,000 in recent years in climate related disasters, mainly in developing countries, it added.
© 2007 DPA
