Your Excellency, Honourable Minister of Health, Prof. Dr Eksavang Vongvichit;
Esteemed Directors from the Ministry of Health;
Distinguished guests and colleagues;
Ladies and Gentlemen
Good morning.
I am honored to be here on behalf of the World Health Organization to welcome you to the Asia Pacific Strategy for Emerging Diseases (APSED,2010) and International Health Regulations (IHR,2005), Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) review meeting for 2014.
Since the implementation of APSED 2010 and IHR 2005, the World Health Organization has been working to support Member States, including Lao People’s Democratic Republic to build capacity to respond to emerging infectious disease (EID) threats and public health emergencies (PHE).
APSED 2010 have served as the road map for achieving IHR 2005 core requirements in the Western Pacific and South East Asia Regions. The bi-regional strategy has provided essential guidance for member states on preparedness and response to Emerging Infectious Diseases (EIDs) by strengthening and enhancing core public health capacities. These include surveillance and response, laboratory diagnostic capacity, improved collaboration between the human and animal health sectors, infection prevention and control practices, risk communication, public health emergency preparedness and systems for monitoring and evaluation. These APSED core capacities are indispensable when it comes to combating the risk of regional and global pandemics.
In recent years, the emergence of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), Avian Influenza H7N9 and Ebola virus disease (EVD) have threatened regional and global health security. These events have re-emphasized the importance of IHR as well as highlighting the strengths and areas for further improvement.
Today, we are here to review our progress in 2014 against the APSED workplan and IHR. This is the 4th annual IHR review conducted in Lao PDR and the final year under the current APSED strategy.
Before APSED was introduced in 2006, concepts and practices such as Risk Assessment, Risk Communication, Field Epidemiology Training, Rapid Response teams and Emergency Operation Centre were not widely understood or implemented in this country. I think that we can now say that we have functioning systems for all these areas. Major improvements have also been made in laboratory capacity, One Health coordination mechanism, monitoring and evaluation, and Point of Entry (POE) implementation.
This year, we are pleased that the WHO Regional Office has chosen to join us for the review. Lao PDR has been selected as one of the Member State to provide examples of APSED implementation. The team will review and evaluate APSED from a variety of perspectives. One approach is to review how the country responded to a large-scale outbreak using the Dengue outbreak in 2013 as an example.
This is especially important as we approach the end of the current APSED. This APSED review will provide us with a better understanding of the strengths and weakness of the strategy and provide guidance on the next steps.
I therefore urge all participants to review your focus areas and priorities during this review. As always, WHO stands ready with our partners to support you in this process.
I wish you a successful workshop.
Thank you.