Address by the Minister of Health of South Africa, Dr ME Tshabalala-Msimang, at the 61st World Health Assembly, Geneva, Switzerland

President of the Assembly, congratulations on your election as president of the 61st World Health Assembly together with the Vice Presidents
Fellow Member-states
Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO); we appreciate your leadership
Honoured guests
Ladies and Gentlemen

The Government of South Africa welcomes the opportunity to address the Assembly this morning.

I wish to join in expressing South Africa's sympathies and condolences to the people of China and Myanmar that have recently suffered from the impact of disasters. The African Union (AU) Ministers of Health meeting on Saturday also issued a statement of condolences in this regard.

We are meeting at the time when the world is faced with serious challenges of rising food prices and climate change that have a devastating effect on the health of the world population particularly, the poor.

Indeed the food riots and protests as well as the floods and droughts in a number of countries bear testimony to the fact that we are already experiencing the additional burdens placed by unfair conditions of trade and climate change amongst others.

The two global threats to health that I referred to, highlight the significant role of external factors in determining success or failure of our programmes to improve the health of people. We have to play an active role as the global health family in addressing these and other social determinants of health such as poverty and underdevelopment, and gender and global economic inequities that limit our ability to make rapid progress towards the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

We recall that soon after the adoption of MDGs, South Africa, amongst others, noted the lack of attention to non-communicable diseases. My country is implementing a number of interventions to address non-communicable diseases, including prevention, development of clinical guidelines and setting of targets. We therefore fully support the current calls for global targets on non-communicable diseases.

Africa, through the African Union, has highlighted the importance of health in development through the development and adoption of the Africa Health Strategy by our Heads of States and governments. I am happy to announce as the Chairperson of the AU Bureau of Health Ministers that Ministers of Health of Africa, meeting in Geneva on Saturday, 17 May adopted the implementation plan for this strategy. We therefore urge all our collaborating partners to support us in implementing this plan.

The Africa Health Strategy emphasises the need to strengthen health systems in order to respond to the many competing health challenges facing us. Central to the functioning of our health systems is the availability of well-trained and motivated human resources for health. Africa has brought this matter to the attention of this assembly and other global forums. We therefore consider it critical that developing countries and Africa in particular be adequately consulted and also play a central role in the development of the code of practice on the international recruitment of health personnel that is underway.

In observing the 30th anniversary of the Alma Ata declaration, South Africa held a conference to review our primary healthcare (PHC) services. All stakeholders reaffirmed their commitment to the primary health care approach and undertook to explore ways to strengthen PHC services in line with Alma Ata principles. It is noteworthy that similar conclusions were reached by the conference organised by WHO/Afro in Ouagadougou.

As an AU appointed champion and Goodwill ambassador of maternal and child health in Africa, I am glad to note the advances made in reducing the number of deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases such as measles which once again endorses the importance of prevention of diseases and promotion of health.

South Africa is indeed on the path to meeting the MDGs. Building from the success of our current immunisation programme, South Africa is making arrangement to introduce in the public health sector two additional vaccines (Rotarix and Prevnar) which we expect will have a significant impact in reducing the cases of diarrhoea and pneumonia and related deaths.

However, it should be emphasised that access to new vaccines remains a major challenge due to their high prices. In line with our global commitment to reduce child mortality, we urge the relevant agencies to assist countries in increasing access to these vaccines by amongst others making these vaccines more affordable.

In conclusion, we continue to emphasise the role of individuals, families and communities in improving health. In this regard, we wish to highlight the decision of the African Union Ministers of Health to observe Africa Healthy Lifestyles Day which we hope will advance our efforts to reduce health risk behaviours. South Africa already observes the national Healthy Lifestyles' Day on the first Friday of February.

Finally Mr President may I join in congratulating us, the WHO member-states on our 60th birthday and I wish us well for many years to come!

Thank you

Issued by: Department of Health
20 May 2008