‘WAHO @ 32 - rededicated to founding fathers’ Vision, to promoting regional integration through health, DG Prof Stanley OKOLO said
In a message read by Dr Samba Ceesay-
Director of Health Services and the West African Health Organisation (WAHO) Liaison
Officer in The Gambia, on behalf of his director general- Prof Stanley OKOLO
said: “We are therefore celebrating today
with the main objective being to rededicate the organisation to the vision of
the founding fathers, and to the mandate of promoting regional integration through
health. It is also an opportunity to share with the population of West Africa
some of our activities, plans and challenges.”
The statement reproduce verbatim was delivered by Dr Ceesay on behalf of Nigerian boss, on 12 July 2019 at the Conference hall of
the Health Ministry, Quadrangle in Banjul, during a press briefing convened by the health ministry, as Gambia took part in the celebration of the sub-regional organisation's 32 Anniversary.
The press briefing was chaired by Dr Dawda Ceesay, Permanent Secretary of Health, and attended by the print and electronic, public and private media outlets in The
Gambia.
The
Message on WAHO Day, 9 July 2019 by Director General Prof Stanley OKOLO
Reads:
“It gives me great pleasure to publish
this message on behalf of
West African Health Organisation (WAHO),
the specialized
institution of the Economic Community of
West African States (ECOWAS) for health issues.
It is 32 years today 9 July 2019 that
WAHO was established by
ECOWAS Protocol (A/P2/7/87) which was
signed in 1987 by the 15 Heads of State and Government of ECOWAS
in Abuja.
We are therefore celebrating today with
the main objective being to rededicate the organisation to the vision of the
founding fathers, and to the mandate of promoting regional integration through
health. It is also an opportunity to share with the population of West Africa
some of our activities, plans and challenges.
At inception, WAHO was given the mandate
to “ensure the highest possible standard and protection of health of the people
in the region through the harmonisation of policies of the Member States, pooling
of resources, and cooperation with one another and with others for a collective
and strategic combat against the health problems of the sub-region.”
Today, the health landscape in West
Africa, is a mixed one.
We have a healthier population which is
living longer in 2019 than in 1987. Childhood immunization rates are high, all
our countries are polio free, and our regional health networks are stronger.
However, we are still faced with recurrent epidemics such as Lassa fever, yellow
fever, and meningitis. Too many of our women still die during childbirth and too
many children do not live beyond their fifth birthday. Preventable illnesses
remain a scourge at all ages. Malaria has been eliminated in several parts of
the world, but is rampant in our region, being responsible for about four out
of five deaths in children under the age of 5 years. Globally, 11 countries account
for over 80% of malaria cases - India and 10 countries in Africa, five of which
are in West Africa. Obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and strokes are
now leading causes of death in our population.
The issue of fake medicines is acute, urgent
and critical in many countries. That we import nearly 80% of the medicines we
need in our region illustrates the need for us to prioritise the provision of
affordable, high quality medicines across the region, preferably through
regional manufacturing which will also contribute to industrialisation and
employment.
At WAHO, we have continued in the past
year to seek solutions to these myriad problems, working with national experts
across the 15 countries of ECOWAS, with the World Health Organisation (WHO), with
regional and international partners (financial and technical) and with civil
society organisations and academia. The region remains extremely grateful to
our numerous partners and all the stakeholders that have worked with WAHO to
impact our local population.
We have convened the region’s health
ministers to agree on
5 major thematic areas of focus the
health of women, children and adolescents, the control of epidemics and non communicable
diseases (including work on elimination of malaria), improving access to
affordable high quality medicines and vaccines, pursuit of quality standards in
healthcare, and regular collation and publication of accurate region specific health
statistics. To enable the achievement of success on these themes, we have been working
to improve human capacity, especially in leadership and governance, to
strengthen the region’s networks and to advocate for increased domestic health
financing in order to sustain ongoing health improvement efforts.
Just a few examples will suffice. In the
past year, we have continued to champion the strengthening and networking of national
public health institutions in each of the 15 countries as the bulwark of defence
against major epidemics of public health concern. We have supported training of
hundreds of field epidemiologists, provided mobile laboratories for some
countries for rapid testing of suspicious illnesses, and undertaken targeted installation
of thermal cameras at our region’s borders to enhance detection of travelers
with febrile illnesses who may need further testing.
We have undertaken several programs to
improve sexual and reproductive health in women, particularly young women as
part of efforts to improve demographic dividend in our region.
Contraceptive commodities have been made
available to several countries, and workshops have been organised for
representatives of national youth parliaments. We have established three
centres of excellence for specialist training of nurses and midwives in the Sahel,
and over 700 nurses and midwives have been trained in offering modern
contraceptive techniques.
Within the major thematic areas of focus
for our overall work,
Key issues that will engage us in the short
to medium term include helping as many countries as possible move from control
to elimination of malaria, agreeing a common drugs registration arrangement for
all our 15 countries in order to attract regional manufacture of
pharmaceuticals, and operationalisation of a human capital strategy,
particularly as it relates to leadership and governance in health, in order to
maximise the value of every single dollar, that goes into health in the region.
We will continue to engage not only our parliamentarians, but also those of
Mauritania and Chad on a project started in 2017, to assure “adequate health financing,
demographic dividend, and population development policies” in our countries.
I wish to take this opportunity to express
my profound gratitude to ECOWAS Ministers of Health for their total support to
WAHO. We will work tirelessly on those specific issues of immediate concern that
they agreed recently, such as leadership and governance, harmonization of regional
regulation of medicines, cooperation in cross border activities, and sharing of
best practices. There is a consensus that increased health financing, particularly
from domestic sources, will enable countries achieve universal health coverage.
Similarly, leveraging private sector resources will catalyse the development of
regional
centres of healthcare excellence in
order to reduce the enormous human and economic burden of medical tourism.
It is barely 5 years since the
devastating Ebola outbreak in the region, which despite initial delays and
missteps, was ultimately combated by the coordinated, concerted and
collaborative efforts of several stakeholders, including WAHO. Victory against
Ebola was ultimately assured through behavioural change, when the local population
abandoned harmful cultural practices, such as washing of the dead. We should
therefore never forget the key lesson that all our efforts will achieve results
only with the consent and active involvement and participation of the
population at large. To this end, civil society organisations, local communities,
grassroots champions and district heads will continue to play a central role in
our planning and activities.
On this 32nd anniversary of
the establishment of WAHO, we plead that each country should empanel multi-sectoral
platforms for relevant health issues such as malaria, and that countries should
also strive harder to wards the realisation of the Abuja Declaration which
calls for 15% of all national budgets to be dedicated to health.
Thank you All.
Prof Stanley OKOLO
Director General, WAHO
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