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Date : 21/04/2005
Source: Department of Health
Title: Tshabalala-Msimang: Seminar with the UK Health Protection Agency


Speech by the Minister of Health, Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, at the opening of the Seminar with the UK Health Protection Agency, Burger's Park Hotel, Pretoria

Director of Programme
Your Excellency, the Acting British High Commissioner
Distinguished guests

It is indeed a great pleasure to welcome our distinguished guests to our country, South Africa. The interaction we are having today builds on the long lasting scientific cooperation which has existed between South African professionals and their counterparts in the Health Protection Agency and the NHS in general.

I am especially pleased to welcome Professor Anna Maslin who has been instrumental in the drafting of the Memorandum of Understanding between our two countries and has grown to become a good friend of South Africa. A warm welcome also to Professor Pat Troop, Head of the Health Protection Agency and we hope your visit here is the beginning of a structured cooperation between our countries in controlling infectious diseases, reducing adverse effects of chemical, microbiological and radiological hazards and other health threats.

As we participate in this seminar, it is important to trace how we have reached this point in our cooperation as the health sector in Britain and South Africa. We recognised that international migration of health professionals is a challenge facing many developing countries, particularly in the African continent. That is why this has been a topical issue in the Commonwealth Health Ministers meetings over the past few years.

As South Africa, we note that the UK was the first country to produce guidelines on international recruitment based on ethical principles, and the first to develop a Code of Practice for Employers.

It was important that, as the two countries with much interest on this matter, we went further in implementing these Codes. We entered into bilateral discussions to ensure that these ideals do not remain just on paper. We had to demonstrate that the provisions of this Code of Practice could be effected. This culminated in a unique cooperation with the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the two countries in October 2003.

This agreement is being cited by amongst others, the International Labour Organisation, and the International Organisation on Migration as a good example of how issues of international migration of professionals should be managed.

The delivery of health care services is labour intensive. This means that we need sufficient quantities of appropriately skilled and motivated human resources. This agreement focuses on the reciprocal educational exchange of healthcare concepts and personnel between our two countries.

Since the Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Ministries of Health of the UK and South Africa in 2003, there have been a number of very valuable collaborations on several programmes, which have been of benefit to both countries. Scientific staff from the UK has benefited greatly from the wealth of clinical material, particularly with respect to infectious diseases and South African scientists have similarly derived great benefit from the expertise of their UK colleagues. The Memorandum of Understanding will be of special benefit in the building of capacity and in training opportunities which are open to our newer generation of scientists, particularly those from previously disadvantaged backgrounds.

We live in a changing world, a world which has grown bigger with the expanding vistas of new emerging diseases, both natural and, in recent times also, human-made. This world has, on the other hand, also become smaller with international travel and nowhere is the global village concept more keenly felt than in the realm of infectious diseases. Infectious agents know no borders and may be rapidly transported from one end of the planet to the other by modern faster means of travel. These new circumstances, which the global health community now faces, demands that new structures and approaches be established in order to protect the health and the well-being of the world population more effectively.

Many of our traditional structures, which may have served us satisfactorily in the past, will need to change to meet these new health threats. In particular, structures need to be improved to enable them to anticipate and respond at the earliest possible opportunity to potential threats to health from new agents or from the introduction of exotic agents in order to maximise the effectiveness of appropriate interventions.

We look forward, Prof Troop, to your presentation on the recent establishment of the Health Protection Agency, which has been set up precisely to meet these new health threats in the most effective manner. On the South African side, we have arranged for presentations to demonstrate how we have addressed various threats to the health of our people. This will include presentations from:

* The South African National Defence Force on the military response to protecting against human-made threats to health;
* The National Health Laboratory Service, a public entity responsible for providing laboratory services to the public sector in this country
* And two of its specialist institutions, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD), responsible for communicable diseases monitoring and surveillance and the National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH) responsible for occupationally acquired diseases
* Lastly, we will have a presentation from the Medical Research Council on the role of research in the protection of the country's health.

This seminar comes at an opportune time for us as the Department of Health as we intensifying our efforts to respond to various health challenges including hospital-acquired infections, reported cases of Marburg virus in the SADC region and securing our food supply chain against illegal ingredients.

The National Health Act will enable us to, amongst other things; establish the Office of Standard Compliance which will be responsible for enforcing compliance with the prescribed quality standards in all health facilities, public and private. This will include ensuring that all health facilities comply with hygiene and other practices to prevent hospital-acquired infections. We are also working together with the Medical Research Council to develop evidence-based interventions against hospital-acquired infections, which is a challenge facing both developing and developed countries. We would like to hear as to how our counterparts in the UK are dealing with this matter.

We have also put systems in place to respond to the reported cases of the Marburg virus in Angola. No confirmed case of Marburg has been reported in South Africa. Isolation facilities for suspected cases have been identified in all provinces. Health care providers and port health officers have been put on alert and are aware on how to deal with suspected cases. In addition, a special committee has been established at national level to closely monitor the situation both locally and internationally.

Working together with the food industry, the Department has made progress in ridding our food supply chain of the illegal food colorant - Sudan Red and also ensure that all food products comply with the legal requirements on the levels of other colorants in food products.

Our goal of ensuring good health for all our people require that we strengthen our health systems and work together as various nations of the world in responding natural and human-made threats to health of our populations.

Let us use the opportunity presented by this seminar to share our experiences and work together as the UK and South Africa towards preserving good health.

It is a great pleasure to declare this seminar open.

Issued by: Department of Health
21 April 2005
Source: Department of Health (http://www.doh.gov.za)

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