The 41st session of the Arab Health Ministers’ Council, which is to begin on Wednesday in Cairo, will focus on health and humanitarian issues facing displaced Syrians in neighboring countries.

The Saudi delegation will be led by Hamzah Khosheim, deputy health minister for planning and development, at the two-day event, which will be held at the headquarters of the Arab League’s Secretariat-General in Cairo. The meeting will discuss a host of issues pertaining to the health and humanitarian conditions of Syrian refugees in neighboring countries, heath and humanitarian conditions in Palestine and the Arab strategy to combat AIDS.

The agenda will also include preparations ahead of the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit and the meetings to be held between the health ministers of Arab countries and South American countries in Peru on April 2, in addition to the issue of Arab-Chinese health cooperation. Kuwait holds the current rotating presidency of the Executive Office of the Council of Arab Health Ministers.

Kuwaiti Health Minister Ali Al-Obaidi, who has already arrived in Cairo to attend the meeting of the 41st ordinary session of the Council of Arab Health Ministers, said the two-day meeting would discuss several significant health issues, mainly the health and humanitarian conditions of Syrian refugees in neighboring countries and those of Palestinians and Mauritanians.

The agenda of the meeting also includes an Arab strategy to fight AIDS/HIV, the provision of health care for maternal health and preparations for an Arab summit due in Tunis in 2015, he said.




The Arab health ministers will also discuss the agenda of the first meeting of Arab-South America health ministers, together with a host of medical and pharmaceutical affairs, he said.

The Kuwaiti minister hoped that the meeting could come up with resolutions and recommendations that would contribute to the promotion and development of Arab cooperation in the health domain.