Health leaders to meet in Madang
PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (PINA Nius Online) — The 4th regional meeting of health ministers and directors in the South Pacific will be held in Madang next month.
Health Minister Ludger Mond and Health Secretary Dr. Puka Temu will host the four-day meeting, to be held at the Madang Resort Hotel from March 12 to 15.
More than 100 participants from island nations as well as observers from international organizations are expected to attend the meeting.
The meeting is being jointly organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community.
A WHO representative in Port Moresby, Dr. Ruth Stark, said the ministers, directors and secretaries of health will come from 21 Pacific Island countries, including American Samoa, the Cook Islands, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam, Kiribati, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, the Republic of Palau, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and Wallis and Futuna.
Dr. Stark said the Regional Director of the World Health Organization, Dr. Shigeru Omi, will be present at the meeting. It will be Dr. Omi’s first visit to PNG since being elected to the office.
The secretariat for the meeting will include senior members of the WHO office for the Western Pacific region, WHO representatives from the Pacific Island countries, and health officials from SPC and PNG.
The four-day meeting will be broken up into two sections. The first two days will involve secretaries and directors of health while the final two days will be for the ministers to formalize and issue a joint declaration regarding assuring healthy island communities.
Dr Stark said the objective of the Madang meeting is twofold. Firstly, the meeting is to review progress made since the last meeting in Palau and secondly to decide on future directions and to further extend the healthy islands approach in the areas of control of communicable diseases, control of non communicable diseases, and human resource development.
The first meeting was held in 1995 on Yanuca Island, Fiji.
