WHO consultation on maternal and child health in Ahmedabad

Ahmedabad (PTI): With a view that maternal and child health should be the epicenter of social development programmes, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) south-east Asia office will be organising a four day consultation here.

“This is for the first time that such a high level consultation is being held in any state, where participants from eleven countries will discuss various programmes related to maternal and child health in their countries,” Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Jaynarayan Vyas told mediapersons here.

“During consultation the participants will discuss the progress made by south-east Asian countries towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) set up by the United Nations,” Vyas said.

“Besides this the participants will also focus on how maternal and child health could be made the centre of all development policies. Various public-private partnerships and building public health management to reduce the infant, child and maternal mortality rate, will also be deliberated in detail,” he added.

The Minister said that during four-day event (from Oct 14-17) members of different countries will also go on a day long field trip to primary health centres, community health centres and access the impact of various government health schemes.

Over 150 participants from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Korea, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Timor Leste will share their experience in implementing health programmes in their countries.