GENEVA, MAY 20 – The 72nd World Health Assembly, the main WHO Governing Body, opened today in Geneva, bringing at the Palais des Nations, until next 28 May, delegations of the 194 Member States.
The World Health Assembly is a unique and privileged forum, at the international level, of dialogue and decision-making on the main global health issues. The agenda includes very topical issues: apart from those concerning WHO budget and its reform, linked to the 13th General Programme of Work promoted by the Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, national delegations will discuss, among other things, access to medicines, emergency programs (such as Ebola), non-communicable diseases and the preparations for the UN General Assembly Highl Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage.
Italy takes active part to the works of the World Health Assembly with a numerous high-level delegation led by the Undersecretary of State for Health, Hon. Prof. Armando Bartolazzi, and composed, among others, by the Secretary General of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Giuseppe Ruocco, and the Director-General of the Italian Medicines Agency (AIFA), Dr. Luca Li Bassi.
Italy has been promoting a WHA resolution on “Improving the transparency of markets for medicines, vaccines and other health-related technologies” and, in this framework, co-hosts with the Republic of Korea a side-event on the same topic. Another side-event titled “Nutrition4Health”, co-organized by Italy and Bangladesh, will debate the link between nutrition, health and non-communicable diseases, underlining the importance of traditional, healthy and sustainable diets, like the Mediterranean Diet.
Also the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Hon. Prof. Emanuela Claudia Del Re, will be in Geneva to open the presentation event of the “International Day against Child Diarrhoea”: the initiative, promoted by the Deputy Minister herself, will see the participation of national delegations and representatives from the most concerned International Organizations (WHO, UNICEF, UN-Water, ICRC, IFRC, UNHCR, Global Fund and GAVI) and aims at raising awareness on the incidence of diarrhoeal diseases on child mortality in many countries and on the need to step up our engagement to improve access to safe water and to sanitation in these contexts. (@OnuItalia)
