JEDDAH, 24 October 2007 — The East Mediterranean Regional Office (EMRO) of the World Health Organization (WHO) held its 54th annual regional meeting recently to discuss issues of health in the region.
Saudi Arabia is among the 22 EMRO countries that participated in the meeting in Cairo, which began on Saturday and ended on Tuesday.
“Saudi Arabia is a medically advanced country in the GCC and EMRO — not only in the health level indicator, but also when it comes to health centers and facilities — and is considered among the countries that have advanced hospitals that treat serious diseases and health conditions like cancer... and eradicate chronic and contagious diseases,” said Dr. Tawfik Khoja, member of the executive board of the Council of Health Ministers for GCC States, who attended the meeting.
Participants discussed general topics, which included different health problems in the 22 member countries with a focus on each member country’s major problems. The aim was to draw WHO’s attention to these problems so that a plan could be put in place for future discussions.
Obesity and its consequences, which include heart diseases and high fat rate in the blood — a problem also experienced in other GCC countries — was identified, together with asthma, as a major health problem in Saudi Arabia.
Major issues discussed included HIV and AIDS, the eradication of infantile poliomyelitis, smoking, maternity and childhood health, drug addiction, health in Lebanon and occupied Palestine, and protection against blindness.
The prices and availability of medication, food marketing for children and teenagers and how this affects the general health of people in the Kingdom were topics that were also discussed.
“Unaffordable essential medications continue to be an important issue for people and a challenge for ministries of health. Despite concerns of high prices, information about it remains scant and unreliable, and policy directions remain unclear,” said Dr. Khoja.
Neonatal mortality was also an important issue discussed at the meeting, as many efforts have been made in the region to reduce the level of under-five mortality and improve child health. The estimates, however, have showed that the achievements in the field were slow. About 1.5 million children, under the age of five, still die every year — 40 percent of which are newborn babies.
“In spite of huge efforts, neonatal mortality is related to congenital diseases due to the traditions within society and marriages among relatives. In order to solve the problem there must be a new approach, which include premarital counseling for those who have inherited congenital diseases. This is a matter of prevention and promotion rather than cure and rehabilitation. It is also a matter of improving delivery skills in order to avoid delivery accidents,” he said.
Among issues discussed was the health mapping system, which allows health organizations to locate other health centers as well as areas that lack health care centers. This guarantees speeding up the process of rescuing people and for ambulances being given the ability to quickly reach people in need. Citizens will also, in the future, be able to access the maps on the Internet.