Health ministers and senior officers from international locations and areas throughout the World Health Organization (WHO) Western Pacific Region in the present day endorsed a regional motion framework to strengthen well being safety.

While vital progress has been made to enhance well being safety, the Western Pacific Region continues to face threats of public well being emergencies from a variety of hazards. These embrace rising infectious ailments, antimicrobial resistance, contaminated meals, excessive climate occasions, earthquakes, and potential chemical and radio-nuclear incidents. Smaller and fewer developed economies are significantly weak.

The affect of public well being emergencies goes far past well being, as demonstrated by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020 alone, COVID-19 resulted in a decline in world GDP of greater than US$ 2 trillion, or about 3.4%.

In the 20 years because the outbreak of extreme acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), the worth of investing strategically in well being safety has been demonstrated by the Region’s sturdy response to COVID-19. However, the pandemic’s widespread affect on well being methods, societies and economies highlights the necessity for extra complete, built-in and forward-looking approaches to well being safety that transcend the well being sector.

To handle this, the Region’s well being leaders in the present day endorsed the Asia Pacific Health Security Action Framework. The Framework is designed to have interaction well being and non-health actors to help prevention, preparedness, readiness and response to multi-hazard public well being emergencies, and to strengthen the resilience of well being safety methods at subnational, nationwide and regional ranges. The Framework guides Member States on how one can plan complete well being safety methods that embody the core capacities of the International Health Regulations (2005), in addition to multisectoral well being safety capacities wanted to strengthen resilience to the general public well being threats of the long run.

WHO will proceed supporting Member States to construct capacities, apply coordinated One Health, multi-hazard and multisectoral methods approaches to well being safety, and coordinate and deploy well being safety sources to help emergency preparedness and response within the Region.

Tomorrow, the Regional Committee will contemplate for endorsement a method on well being innovation and regional motion frameworks on communication for well being and the well being workforce within the Western Pacific.

Notes to editors:

A livestream of the Regional Committee proceedings, official paperwork, truth sheets and movies on the problems to be addressed this week may be accessed here. For updates, observe @WHOWPRO on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, YouTube and the hashtag #RCM74. Images can be found for obtain by way of our multimedia library.

Working with 194 Member States throughout six areas, WHO is the United Nations specialised company answerable for public well being. Each WHO area has its regional committee – a governing physique composed of ministers of well being and senior officers from the area’s Member States. Each regional committee meets yearly to agree on well being actions and chart priorities for WHO’s work.

The WHO Western Pacific Region is house to greater than 1.9 billion individuals throughout 37 international locations and areas in Asia and the Pacific: Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, China, Cook Islands, Fiji, France (which has accountability for French Polynesia, New Caledonia, and Wallis and Futuna), Hong Kong SAR (China), Japan, Kiribati, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Macao SAR (China), Malaysia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia (Federated States of), Mongolia, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Samoa, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (which has accountability for Pitcairn Islands), the United States of America (which has accountability for American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam), Vanuatu and Viet Nam.

Media Contacts

Mr Ruel E. Serrano
Senior Communications Associate
WHO Western Pacific
Telephone: +632 8528 9993
Mobile: +63 908 891 4532
Email: serranor@who.int