(MENAFN- Jordan News Agency) Amman Feb.10 (Petra) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) and Iraq's Ministry of Health Wednesday endorsed joint action to meet health needs and challenges in the country.
WHO's Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean Dr. Ala Alwan will meet with senior health officials local and international health partners in Baghdad to discuss a number of emerging health needs and challenges in the country.
The Regional Director and Her Excellency the Minister of Health Dr. Adila Hammoud discussed and endorsed a joint WHO/Iraq's Ministry of Health biennial cooperation plan for 20162017.
Health needs in Iraq are enormous and the organization has been working closely with the Iraqi health officials to implement strategic objectives to provide more people with better health care and more life-saving services said Alwan. "In 2016 WHO and the Ministry of Health will focus on the rehabilitation of health services in the newly liberated areas in Anbar Salah-El-Din and Nineveh in addition to addressing a number of public health issues to ensure the availability of the essential health services to the returnees in these areas explained Alwan.
The current fiscal security and humanitarian crisis has overwhelmed the health system in the country and compromised accessibility to and quality of health services in a number of areas. An estimated 84% of health facilities are either partially or totally non-functional in security-compromised governorates like Anbar Nineveh Salah Aldin Diyala and Kirkuk making it a necessity to rehabilitate these facilities in the newly liberated areas in particular to reach returnees with guaranteed access to essential health services.
In 2015 WHO supported the Ministry of Health to improve health systems governance and resilience and respond to the emergency needs of the most vulnerable populations such as internally displaced persons (IDPs) refugees and host communities.
The support has also included among other key achievements the provision of curative and preventive public health care Centre as well as the implementation of 5 national polio and measles immunization campaigns administering 5.4 million polio vaccines alone to 5.8 million children under 5 years of age. Similarly WHO UNICEF and other partners have supported the Government of Iraq in successively bringing an end to a massive cholera outbreak and in protecting vulnerable populations through a cholera vaccination campaign during which a total of 510 000 doses of cholera vaccine were administered to 255 000 IDPs and Syrian refugees in 62 camps in 2 vaccination rounds carried out in October and December 2015. "The ministry appreciates the collaboration received from WHO and its partners to jointly implement the agreed upon strategic objectives for 20162017 biennial cooperation. The technical support and invaluable contribution provided by WHO has helped the ministry to meet different health needs in many governorates in 2015 and we do look forward to having more cooperation to face health challenges anticipated in 2016" said Hammoud the Iraqi Minister of Health.
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