On September 2, 2019 Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare(MoHFW) Dr. Harsh Vardhan inaugurated the ‘72nd Session of the WHO Regional Committee for South-East Asia’ in New Delhi and was also unanimously elected as the chair of the 72nd Session of the WHO(World Health Organisation) Regional Committee for South-East Asia.This is the second time that India is hosting this session and the previous one was also hosted by India in New Delhi.
During the Ministerial meeting regarding ‘Emergency Preparedness’ 2nd day of ‘72nd Session of the WHO Regional Committee for South-East Asia’,India confirmed its support by providing 200,000 US dollars towards implementation of the preparedness stream under the South East Asia Health Emergency Response Fund (SEARHEF).Health Ministers of the South-East Asia Region of WHO also signed the Delhi Declaration on Emergency Preparedness.
Key points
i. Members present: During the inaugural function, 8 health ministers from the 11 countries of the WHO South East Asia Region (SEAR), SmtPreeti Sudan, Health and Family Welfare(HFW)Secretary, DrPoonamKhetrapal Singh, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia Region were present.
ii. Address by Harsh Vardhan:
- PoshanMaah: The month of September is observing as “PoshanMaah” (Nutrition Month) addressing malnutrition problems and improve healthy eating and move towards ‘Malnutrition-Free India’.
- Eat Right India: With the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India’s (FSSAI) adoption of ‘food system approach’, the citizens are committed to the people’s movement called the “Eat Right India” movement with the tagline “SahiBhojan. BehtarJeevan” which means ‘Right diet leads to better quality of life’.
- Fit India movement: The health minister credited Indian Cricketer ViratKohli in helping to launch the Fit India Movement on National Sports Day(August 29) that would encourage people to include physical activity and sports as a routine in their life.
- Road to universal healthcare: The health minister targeted Ayushman Bharat’s universal health care by 2022 with the help of two components with the first one being the establishment of 1.5lakh health and wellness centre and the second being health protection cover to 100 million poor and vulnerable families for secondary and tertiary care.
- Key features of PMJAY: Ayushman Bharat which is also known as Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana(PMJAY) provides health cover of upto Rs.5 lakh per family with 17,000 hospitals enlisted under the scheme. The scheme met with 4.1million beneficiaries saving Rs.120billion on health expenditure.
- Mission Indradhanush: Plans to increase immunisation coverage to 90% with Indhradhanush mission were charted out. The mission was launched in 2014 to achieve and sustain the immunisation coverage by 2020.
About MoHFW:
Founded-1976.
Headquarters- New Delhi.
Minister of State(MoS) –Faggan Singh Kulaste(constituency- Mandla, Madhya Pradesh).
Harsh Vardhan constituency- ChandniChowk, Delhi.