The 67th World Health Assembly took place from 19-24 May 2014 in Geneva with a side event on NTDs.
The 67th World Health Assembly took place from 19-24 May 2014 at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Over 3,000 delegates and high-level representatives from WHO’s 194 Member States met to discuss key global health issues, including NTDs.
Following last year's Assembly and its adoption of the WHA Resolution on NTDs, the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Health hosted a side event on 22 May to emphasise the success of the integrated NTD programme in Nigeria and to highlight the importance of continued funding for health programme quality.
Panellists:
Chair: Dr Maria Neira, Director, Public Health and the Environment Department, WHO
Prof Onyebuchi Chukwu, Minister of Health, Nigeria
Dr Bridget Okoeguale, Director of Public Health, Nigeria
Dr Dirk Engels, Director, Dept of Control of NTDs, WHO
Nichola Cadge, Health Adviser, DFID
Dr Ariel Pablos-Mendez, Assistant Administrator for Global Health, USAID
Dr Wendy Harrison, Chair, UK Coalition against NTDs
Key themes/messages:
The need for cross-sectoral collaboration with a significant emphasis placed on water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) collaboration
The power of NTDs as indicators of poverty
The importance of focussing on social and environmental determinants of health
The transition of developing economies to MICs and national ability to tackle NTD elimination
The importance of effective M&E, demonstrating impact of interventions
The UK Coalition Against NTDs produced a meeting report summarising each panellist's points.
For more details, see the 67th WHA agenda.