Brazzaville, 8 September 2008 -- Ministers of health from the World Health Organization (WHO) African Region ended their fifty-eighth session on Friday in Yaoundé, Cameroon, with the adoption of resolutions aimed at improving the health of women and strengthening laboratory capacity in the Region. The meeting also endorsed the Ouagadougou Declaration on Primary Health adopted by the Region’s health Ministers in April this year.

The resolution on improving women’s health urged Member States to develop and implement road maps to reduce maternal and newborn mortality; develop and implement policies and strategies to prevent early and forced marriages as well as gender violence and all forms of discrimination against women.

In adopting the resolution, the session declared that henceforth, 4 September would be observed as “Women’s Health Day” throughout the Region.

The second resolution adopted by the meting called on Member States to develop or strengthen their national laboratory policies focusing on laboratory functions, organization, structures, networking, coordination, maintenance biosafety, and biosecurity and quality management.

The Regional Committe endorsed a report earlier submitted to it by the WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Luis Sambo, in which improved laboratory services were described as critical to disease control efforts.

Improved laboratory capacity would lead to prompt and appropriate responses to epidemics, quicker and better disease detection and better patient management, Dr Sambo had indicated in the report.

In endorsing the Ouagadougou Declaration, the meeting called on Member States to take appropriate actions to update their health policies in line with it and establish a national framework for its implementation.

Ministers who attended the five-day meeting also signed on to two pledges: one to take certain actions to reduce health care-associated infections, the other to introduce a highly promising candidate meningitis vaccine in their countries.

The fifty-ninth session of the Regional Committee will be held from 31 August to 4 September 2009 in Kigali, Rwanda.

For further information, please contact:

Mr. Samuel T. Ajibola,

ajibolas [at] afro.who.int

Tel: +47 231 39378