Date: 10/26/2010
TUMSPR News: The Assistant- Director General of WHO, Dr. Ala Alwan, says the Regional Consultation Meeting held at TUMS will provide an important input to the member states of the Eastern-Mediterranean Region and to the United Nations General Assembly on October25, 2010.
A regional high-level consultation in Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO) on the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases hosted by the Ministry of Health and Medical Education was held at Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS) on October25 and 26, 2010.
The participant of this gathering included delegates from countries in the EMRO region, vice-chancellors for health from different medical sciences universities throughout the country and authorities from UN and WHO country offices in Iran.
At the opening remarks, Dr. Ala Alwan, the Assistant- Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) said the Regional Consultation Meeting held at TUMS will provide an important input to the member states of the Eastern-Mediterranean Region and to the United Nations General Assembly on October25, 2010. On May 13 2010, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution on non-communicable diseases (NCDs). As Dr. Alwan put it, the resolution is a major step forward in global health and development, as it recognizes the impact caused by the growing burden of non-communicable diseases, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer and chronic lung disease.
Alwan said the socio-economic impact of these diseases in many developing countries calls for global and national action at the highest level to address this development issue. Dr. Alwan stated that heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer and chronic lung disease were the leading causes of disease burden and death today and they represented a major threat to global and regional development.
The Assistant- Director General of the WHO believes these diseases are preventable as they are largely caused by tobacco use, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and harmful use of alcohol causing an estimated 36 million deaths every year, including 9 million people dying prematurely before the age of 60. The major impact of these diseases is on developing nations and over 90% of these deaths before the age of 60 occur in low- and middle income countries and economies in transition, particularly among the poorest and most vulnerable people, Alwan said.
The former Minister of Health in the Iraqi Interim Government said countries of the Eastern Mediterranean region, including Iran, were suffering from a progressive increase in the magnitude of these diseases and their negative socio-economic impact. More than 50 percent of deaths in the region are caused by non-communicable diseases and estimates of WHO suggest that this region will have the second largest increase in such mortalities over the next ten years, Dr. Alwan says.
NCDs are a development issue because of loss of household income from unhealthy behaviors, from loss of productivity due to disease, disability and premature death and from the high cost of health care, which drives families below the poverty line. Dr. Alwan said that NCDs were also undermining the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the links between NCDs and HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and child and maternal health meant that NCDs needed to be tackled if the MDG targets were going to be achieved. The Millennium Development Goals or MDGs are eight international development goals that all 192 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve by the year 2015. They include eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, achievement of universal primary education, promotion of gender equality and empowerment of women, reduction of child mortality rate, improvement of maternal health, combat of HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, ensurance of environmental sustainability and development of a global partnership for development.
Being preventable and having cost-effective interventions, Dr. Alwan encourages all governments to offer higher political commitment and adopt approaches to involve all their departments if they wish to control these diseases.
Dr. Alwan finally emphasizes that the outcome of this Regional Consultation will provide an important input to consultations among Member States in other regions, as well as to the High-level Meeting of the General Assembly itself.
http://publicrelations.tums.ac.ir/UserFiles/File/SD%20(non-picture)/Voice/October%202010/A.%20Alvan%20EMRO-TUMS-Oct%202010.mp3
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