Healthy Ageing through strengthened primary health care and combating smokeless tobacco are among key priorities that health leaders would deliberate upon at the Seventy-eighth Regional Committee Session of WHO South-East Asia, hosted by Sri Lanka from 13 to 15 October.
Health ministers and senior officials from Member States are also expected to discuss expanding the corpus of the South-East Asia Regional Health Emergency Fund (SEARHEF) and accelerating action against antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Office-In-Charge for WHO South-East Asia, Dr Catharina Boehme, other WHO experts are expected to participate in the three-day meeting that will set the health agenda in the Region for the coming years.
The regional governing body meeting is expected to adopt resolutions on priority health issues and review progress against resolutions from previous years.
The Member States and WHO are expected to adopt a declaration on healthy ageing. The spotlight on healthy ageing follows rapidly increasing proportion of people above 60 years. 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. Although ageing is inevitable, health and social systems need to be adequately prepared to harness this demographic shift to maximum its advantage.
The meeting will discuss strategies to combat the use of smokeless tobacco, electronic cigarettes, nicotine pouches and areca nut. The Region continues to bear a disproportionate burden of one-third of all global tobacco users with over 280 million adult smokeless tobacco users and approximately 11 million adolescent tobacco users. The growing use of novel nicotine products, such as electronic cigarettes and nicotine pouches and the widespread sociocultural use of areca nut, further compounds the challenge.
Prone to natural disasters, the WHO South-East Asia Region has its own regional health emergency fund – the South-East Asia Regional Health Emergency Fund (SEARHEF) - to support lifesaving interventions in the immediate aftermath of a health emergency. The meeting will deliberate on expanding the corpus of this fund that has supported 49 emergencies in 10 Members States, since it was set up in 2008. The mandate of the fund was expanded in 2016 to also support emergency preparedness.
Accelerating action against AMR by aligning regional policy actions with global commitments, would be another priority issue at the Regional Committee. The recent global and regional milestones such as the UN General Assembly’s Political Declaration on Antimicrobial Resistance have created renewed momentum and opportunities for action.
Home to nearly 2 billion people, the WHO South-East Asia Region is prioritizing 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.
The aim is to promote, provide, and protect the health and well-being of all people and to reinvigorate actions needed to get the health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) back on track.