Results for WHO

It is indeed an honour and a privilege to address this important assembly today, on behalf of the Pacific island nations, namely: Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, and my own country, Tonga.

On the eve of World Cancer Day the World Health Organization (WHO) urged governments to strengthen national control programmes, including by raising awareness, amid an alarming rise of cancer cases. WHO's Western Pacific Region bears a significant share of the global cancer burden, accounting for 32% of all cancers in 2008. There were slightly more than 4 million new cases of cancer in the region in 2008 – 2.31 million in men and 1.75 million in women. Nearly 2.6 million people in the region died from cancer in that year. - WHO.

More than 75% of people suffering from mental disorders in the developing world receive no treatment or care. A new WHO programme launched today, on World Mental Health Day 2008 highlights the huge treatment gap for a number of mental, neurological and substance use disorders. Across Africa for example, nine out of ten people suffering from epilepsy go untreated, unable to access simple and inexpensive anticonvulsant drugs which cost less than US$5 a year per person.

Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) has been recorded at the highest rates ever, according to a new World Health Organization (WHO) report that presents findings from the largest survey to date on the scale of drug resistance in tuberculosis.

A new book of pocket-charts that will help health workers to identify people at risk of heart attacks and strokes and save lives by prescribing the most appropriate treatment is published today by the World Health Organization (WHO). The charts can be adapted for use in any setting, in any country, with any patient.

The Sixtieth World Health Assembly (WHA) will take place from 14-23 May 2007 at the Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland.