Mauritius News

Mauritius celebrated World Cancer Day 2024 against a backdrop of rising cancer cases, in line with global trends. In fact, the International Agency for the Research on Cancer (IARC) and World Health Organization (WHO) predict that new cases worldwide will increase by 50% annually over the next 15 years, and 77% by 2050.  This increase in cases is due to an aging population and the increased exposure to risk factors such tobacco, alcohol, unhealthy diets, pollution and insufficient physical exercise.  The main theme of World Cancer Days since 2022, namely Close the Care Gap, aims to mobilise the necessary attention and resources to ensure that the rising burden of cancer can be addressed in an equal manner across the globe and that all people in the world have access to systematic testing, and early diagnostic and treatment. Today unfortunately inequality of access lead to unequal cancer outcomes between developed and developing countries, this celebration advocates for such inequalities to be reduced in the coming years. During a ceremony to launch World Cancer Day 2024 organised by the Ministry of Health and Wellness (MOHW), the WHO representative (WR) in Mauritius, Dr Anne Ancia, provided a reminder of the global cancer toll. In 2022 alone, more than 20 million new cancer cases were detected across the globe, while 10 million people lost their lives to the disease. “Many of these fatalities could have prevented or at least delayed,” she explained.

Public health emergencies arising from multi hazards and threats continue to be a major concern, especially in the African Region with more than 100 public health emergencies reported and responded to annually. To enhance swift, effective and coordinated prevention, preparation, response and recovery to these emergencies, the International Health Regulations recommend the establishment of a functional Public Health Emergency Operations Centre (PHEOC) to serve as the ‘nerve centre’ for preparation and response to public health emergencies. Mauritius strives to have an established PHEOC with a well-established incident command and control system, with the necessary well trained core workforce, tested standard operating procedures, well equipped physical facility where results from surveillance and/or early detection of alerts can be managed in a timely manner and lead to swift and effective response of public health emergencies to subsequently reduce the health and socio- economic burden on the country.

Mauritius has successfully developed its second national action plan on anti-microbial resistance (AMR) 2024-2028, through a three-week robust workshop supported by the World Health Organization. This comes following the evaluation of the first national action plan (NAP) 2018-2022 by the same team from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Ministry of Health and Wellness (MOHW) in September 2023. The Ministry of Health and Wellness of Mauritius has shown great concern about the burden of AMR.  A significant number of deaths in Mauritius can be attributed to hospital-acquired infections, many of which are caused by drug-resistant organisms. The global findings are also worrying with 1.27 million deaths caused by AMR while a further 4.95 million deaths are associated with AMR in 2019. The WHO Representative Dr Anne Ancia has underlined the high rates of multi-drug organisms reported at hospital level and most importantly in the intensive care units. The growing rates of AMR and the decline in new antibiotics emerging on the pharmaceutical market are likely to accentuate the problem of lack of treatment for resistant infections contributing to higher mortality rates.

The Covid-19 pandemic has left major impact globally. Mauritius has been very efficient in responding to the pandemic through various measures established during the crisis. Although the response has been swift, the toll on the health of population as well as the socio-economic implications cannot be undermined. Among the key lessons learned, the need for strengthened preparedness and real-time early warning systems are of high priority. Mauritius thus endeavors to consistently strengthen its public health emergency preparedness and early warning system through the upscaling of its Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (IDSR) System. The Ministry of Health and Wellness (MOHW) with the support of World Health Organization has therefore made major progress in IDSR this year through 1. the adaptation of the 3rd edition of the WHO technical guidelines for IDSR to meet Mauritius context, 2.  the capacity building of healthcare workers through training of  46 trainers and 151 regional Health Care Workers on IDSR, 3. the initiation of a national cascade training of IDSR aiming to train 7000 health professionals in 181 health facilities in the Republic of Mauritius by December 2024, and 4. the revision of the list of priority diseases that will be part of the real-time surveillance and early warning system.

Port Louis. With the aim to continuously improving food safety for greater health outcomes, Mauritius has made a leap of progress in achieving leadership in the Codex Alimentarius Commission through the implementation of the Codex Trust Fund (CTF) “Building Codex Mauritius” Project. Mauritius is the only African Country selected by the CODEX Trust Fund for support in 2019. This 3-year project administered by World Health Organization (WHO) and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) aims to build strong, solid and sustainable national capacity to engage in Codex Alimentarius Commission at global and regional levels. This project was officially launched in June 2023 by the Minister of Agro-industry and Food Security in the presence of the WHO Representative in Mauritius, other Partners and national stakeholders. WHO supported the country to (i) adapt the Codex Procedural Manual and establish procedures for submission of comments, national positions, and participation/follow-up in Codex committees; (ii) enhance understanding and awareness of the importance of Codex among high-level policy and decision-makers, industry and scientific community, government officials and consumer activists and (iii) improve dissemination of information on the relevance of Codex and preparedness to generate data to contribute to the right level of information in development of global, regional and national food safety standards. A high level meeting with key ministers and decision makers in July 2023 provided valuable insights to draft the National Codex documents which were validated before the capacity building sessions held in August 2023.