WHO meets in Accra

Accra, Nov. 14, GNA - Ghana will host a three-day informal retreat of the Executive Board of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Accra from November 19 to November 21.

It is the first time that the Board is holding such a meeting outside Europe.

According to a Ministry of Health statement, Ghana was chosen for the retreat not because the Board's Chairman, Dr Kwaku Afriyie, Minister of Health is a Ghanaian, but because the country's achievements as well as its challenges in the health sector.

This retreat would be used as a period to share ideas and aspirations and would allow the newly elected Director-General of WHO Dr Jong Wook Lee, the opportunity to meet his new Senior Management Team to enable them to discuss some of the key issues of the Organisation.

The 32-member Board is composed of technically qualified persons in health and each is designated by a member state that has been elected to serve by the World Health Assembly.

The Board performs duties entrusted to it by the Assembly and also advises the Assembly on questions referred to it by the body on matters assigned to the WHO by convention, agreement and regulations. The Accra retreat would give the country more visibility and raise Ghana's profile in the WHO, the statement said.

Topics for discussions would include the future direction of the organisation, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and targets. It would focus attention on HIV/AIDS and the three by five initiative on tuberculosis and malaria as well as poliomyelitis eradication. The three by five initiative is a new project conceived by WHO to treat three million people living with AIDS in developing countries with Anti Retroviral Drugs by the year 2005.

The delegates would visit health facilities such as the La Polyclinic, Nogouchi Memorial Institute and the Mampong Centre for Research into Plant Medicine.