Ahead of the seventy-fifth session of the WHO Regional Committee for the Western Pacific, Dr Saia Ma'u Piukala led the launch of a new report tracking progress in the Region on the health-related Sustainable Development Goals. The Regional Director also gave a preview of the expected outcomes of the Regional Committee meeting that will take place in Manila, Philippines, on 21-25 October.
The Regional Committee Meeting is the first for Dr Piukala since he took up the role of Regional Director for the Western Pacific in February.
He said world leaders came together at the UN in 2015, and agreed on a set of global goals to be achieved by 2030.
“Among them are targets to improve health and wellbeing. The report we are releasing today, looks at how countries in this Region are tracking. It finds that there has been some impressive progress, but also points to a number of areas- where urgent action is needed to meet the goals by the deadline, just six years from now.
“In terms of life expectancy, the report shows that COVID-19 did less damage in the Western Pacific, than other parts of the world. Life expectancy is now 77.4 years – longer than any other region of the world,” he said.
“But it’s not all positive – the pandemic, of course, caused devastating losses of loved ones, and it disrupted progress in various other areas of health.”
It also deepened inequalities.
The report points to major challenges in the Region, in terms of:
- climate and environment-related health concerns;
- planning for rapid population ageing;
- tackling noncommunicable diseases- like heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer; and
- ensuring people can access the health services they need, where and when they need them-without any financial hardship.
“We urgently need transformative primary health care, robust systems for health financing- to achieve universal health coverage and the SDGs, as well as digital health, climate-resilient health facilities, and more,” Dr Piukala said.
The Regional Committee Meeting -taking place in Manilla next week is WHO’s -most important governing body in the Region, where once a year health ministers and other senior officials- come together to decide on key priorities.
Member States will also consider Action Frameworks -to address important health challenges. The first is a Regional Action Framework -for Health Financing to Achieve Universal Health Coverage, and Sustainable Development in the Western Pacific, where many families are struggling to pay for medicines and doctors’ visits, and they are falling into poverty, he said.
The draft framework that Member States will consider next week aims to help them improve health financing.
