WHO Western Pacific Member States take action on key health priorities

Health leaders agreed here this week to accelerate action on four key priorities - strengthening health security, addressing climate change and health risks, stemming alcohol-related harms and improving oral health - in an effort to ensure better health for the 2.2 billion people of the World Health Organization (WHO) Western Pacific Region.

Health ministers and other representatives from the Region's 38 countries and areas, meeting at the seventy-sixth session of the WHO Regional Committee for the Western Pacific, unanimously endorsed four ambitious yet practical resolutions that adapt global approaches to map out actions to address pressing health challenges in the Region.

In addition to key priorities, the Regional Committee, the Organization's highest regional governing body, considered a range of other issues including the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in health care, hypertension control, safer surgery, tobacco control and growing HIV crises in several countries in the Region.

"This week's session has been one of our most significant Regional Committees ever," said Dr Saia Ma'u Piukala, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific. "First and foremost, our agenda focused on the most urgent priorities for our region: from the staggering burden of noncommunicable diseases to climate-related health impacts affecting millions."

The Regional Director lauded the emphasis on the Region's 21 Pacific island countries and areas, whose needs are being prioritized within the wider regional health context, as well as the display of unity and camaraderie.

"Health for All is WHO's guiding vision and mandate," he said, "and it is being emphasized at a time when multilateralism globally is in short supply."

Climate change and health system safety and resilience

With this resolution, Member States called for implementing the Global Action Plan on Climate Change and Health as tailored to the Western Pacific Region, with countries investing in climate-resilient health systems including water, sanitation and hygiene in health-care facilities; building workforce capacity; enhancing surveillance and early warning systems; and strengthening urban and community resilience.

Implementing amendments to the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR)

Member States of the Western Pacific Region also became the first WHO region globally to endorse a concrete plan to implement crucial amendments to strengthen IHR, a legally binding treaty on agreed health security measures. The amendments were approved last year and began to take effect last month.

The IHR and its amendments complement the WHO Pandemic Agreement endorsed by the World Health Assembly earlier this year. Taken together, they strengthen considerably the regional and global health security architecture.

Alcohol control

This resolution calls on Western Pacific Member States to implement the WHO Global alcohol action plan 2022-2030, which emphasizes the prioritization of the WHO best buys, including alcohol taxes and pricing measures; restricting the availability of alcohol; and comprehensively restricting or banning alcohol marketing. Other measures include strengthening drink-driving laws and policies and expanding access to prevention and treatment services.

In addition, the resolution acknowledges the urgency of countering industry interference that continues to undermine and delay evidence-based policy-making, even as overall consumption is projected to rebound or exceed pre-pandemic levels unless stronger regulatory action is taken.

Oral health

Recognizing oral health as a long-neglected issue, this resolution centres on accelerating progress in the regional implementation of the WHO Global strategy and action plan on oral health 2023-2030. Oral diseases are the most prevalent noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in the Western Pacific Region - affecting more than 800 million people - and share risk factors with other NCDs, including tobacco-related diseases.

Member States agreed on five acceleration priorities for oral health: build workforce capacity, integrate oral health services into primary care, embed oral health prevention in healthy settings (schools, workplaces and communities), link oral health with NCD prevention (sugar, tobacco and alcohol), and strengthen governance by developing robust national policies and strategies.

Stubborn challenges, new frontiers

Amid a sharp rise in HIV cases in parts of the Region, the Regional Committee conducted a dialogue on how countries should respond. A joint WHO-UNAIDS side event spelled out different contexts in various countries, and the specific populations involved - from injecting drug users in Fiji to men who have sex with men in the Philippines - and how strategies and solutions must be tailored accordingly in a stigma-free environment.

A session on AI in health care highlighted that AI should support - not replace - the health workforce. AI transformation in health must be ethical, equitable, culturally sensitive and grounded in sound data governance. It further confirmed that AI can act as a catalyst for improving health system performance and resilience when guided by responsible implementation and clear governance.

Member States also shared country-level experiences:

• to make surgery safer and more accessible by embedding it as part of the primary health care approach, helping ensure that life-saving operations are available to everyone, everywhere;
• to tackle the enormous challenge of hypertension, with one in three people across the Region living with the condition and the vast majority of them unaware of it; and
• to urgently accelerate tobacco control in the Region with the slowest decline in tobacco use by closing policy gaps, strengthening enforcement, engaging communities and partners and countering industry interference - particularly to protect youth.

All of these issues will be among those considered by Member States early next year as main agenda items for the seventy-seventh Regional Committee to be held in Manila, Philippines.

"This session of the Regional Committee has made it clear that health is a unifier, allowing us to reach consensus on issues that impact countries big and small," said Dr Piukala. "By setting measurable health targets, we can ensure governments remain accountable to their people and empower citizens to take responsibility as well for their well-being."

The Regional Director thanked all the Western Pacific Region's countries and areas for their partnership in health, and expressed special appreciation to the Government of Fiji and the Ministry of Health and Medical Services for hosting this year's Regional Committee.

"As we look towards next year's session of the Regional Committee, we reinforce our commitment to weaving health for families, communities and societies, serving 2.2 billion people - over a quarter of humanity - in our interconnected Region and world," the Regional Director said.

_______________________

For more information and to arrange media interviews, please contact [email protected].