News highlights -- January 2013

FEATURE

Key WHO/Europe events in 2013

Following the adoption of Health 2020, the European policy for health and well-being, in September 2012, and building on past resolutions and collaborative work, WHO/Europe plans many activities, campaigns and events in 2013.

Here are some highlights.

• Joint meeting of the regional verification commission for measles and rubella elimination and national verification committees for Nordic and western European countries will take place on 29–30 January, in Copenhagen, Denmark. The goal is to eliminate measles and rubella from the WHO European Region by 2015.
• WHO/Europe will move its main office in Copenhagen to new premises. Tentatively scheduled for March 2013, the move will bring together in one location all the United Nations agencies in Copenhagen.
• The third session of the Twentieth Standing Committee of the Regional Committee (SCRC) will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark on 18–19 March.
• The theme for World Health Day in 2013, celebrated on 7 April, is hypertension. This condition increases the risk of heart attacks, strokes and kidney failure and, when not controlled, can cause blindness, heartbeat irregularities and heart failure.
• A high-level technical meeting on health systems in times of economic crisis, to be held on 17–18 April in Oslo, Norway, will follow up the high-level ministerial meeting on this theme, held in Oslo in April 2009.
• European Immunization Week will be celebrated on 20–27 April. Continuing last year’s success, including the participation of all 53 Member States in the European Region, in 2013 the initiative will focus on the people affected by vaccine-preventable diseases, as a reminder of the continuing threat to the European Region.
• The Sixty-sixth World Health Assembly will be held on 20–28 May 2013 in Geneva, Switzerland.
• The 8th Global Conference on Health Promotion 2013 is scheduled for 10–14 June in Helsinki, Finland. One day will be devoted to inspirational experiences with health promotion in the European Region.
• WHO/Europe will hold a European ministerial conference on nutrition and noncommunicable diseases within the framework of Health 2020 on 4–5 July in Vienna, Austria. It will address policy options on nutrition and will be the first to look at nutrition and diet in the Region through the lens of Health 2020.
• The sixty-third session of the WHO Regional Committee for Europe will take place on 16–19 September 2013.
• A conference on health systems, scheduled for 17–18 October in Tallinn, Estonia, will mark the progress made since Member States adopted the Tallinn Charter: Health Systems for Health and Wealth at the WHO European Ministerial Conference on Health Systems in 2008.
• The thirty-fifth anniversary of the Declaration of Alma-Ata will be celebrated in November 2013 in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
• A ministerial conference on the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases is scheduled for 10–11 December 2013 in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.

NEWS

Child marriage – a threat to health
20-12-2012
Child marriage disproportionately affects girls, with a life-long impact on their physical and psychological health. The effect goes far beyond denying them the basic right to choose their own life partner – complications from early and unwanted pregnancies are among the leading causes of death for girls aged 15–19 years worldwide. 

Policy seminar in Kyrgyzstan connects universal coverage and service delivery modernization
20-12-2012
The Ministry of Health of Kyrgyzstan, with support from WHO, recently held a high-level senior policy seminar to discuss the key health system issues of universal coverage and service delivery modernization. Almost 100 participants attended the seminar on 29–30 November 2012.

WHO/Europe and the Eurasian Economic Community sign agreement
14-12-2012
On 10 December 2012, Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO Regional Director for Europe, and Murat Musataev, Deputy Secretary General of the Eurasian Economic Community (EurAsEC), signed an agreement to cooperate on health issues.

United Nations mission visits camps for Syrian people in Turkey
13-12-2012
On 4–5 December 2012, a joint United Nations health mission to southern Turkey visited four camps for Syrian people hosted in Turkey as a consequence of the conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic. The mission was conducted by WHO and other agencies, with support from AFAD, the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency of the Prime Ministry of Turkey and the Turkish Ministry of Health. 

Countries in European and Eastern Mediterranean regions build capacity in global health diplomacy
04-12-2012
Representatives of 10 countries in the WHO European and Eastern Mediterranean regions participated in an executive course on global health diplomacy, exploring common interests in health as a foreign policy issue and illustrating how countries have collaborated at the national and regional levels for global health. The course was held in Ankara, Turkey on 26–30 November 2012.

More news

FROM COUNTRIES

WHO joins mission to advise new Georgian Government on measures to establish universal coverage
03-01-2013

Minister of Health of Serbia visits WHO/Europe
21-12-2012

Tajik youth speak out on World AIDS Day
21-12-2012 

Assessment and capacity building in health care waste management in the Republic of Moldova
19-12-2012 

Germany: model of good governance for workers’ health
10-12-2012 

Training course in Estonia on ship sanitation certificates and the International Health Regulations
05-12-2012 

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