Harare, 12 October -- The 52nd session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa ended Saturday in Harare, Zimbabwe, with the adoption of resolutions aimed at scaling up action in critical areas that are key to improving the health situation in Africa.

The Regional Committee, WHO's governing body in the African Region, adopted resolutions endorsing strategy documents prepared by the Brazzaville-based WHO Africa Regional Office (AFRO). These are on accelerating the development of human resources for health, poverty and health, environment and health, and accelerating the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) activities in order to improve the health of children. The meeting also approved AFRO's Programme Budget and the Regional Contribution for the 2004-2005 biennium.

The resolution on the development of hanuman resources for health urged Member States to not only make the issue a priority, but also to put on the international agenda moral and ethical considerations in the recruitment , by developed countries, of health workers from developing countries.

The strategy on poverty and health adopted by the meeting aims at providing counties with analytical instruments for elaborating and implementing health policies that contribute significantly to national poverty reduction goals.

Delegates to the five-day meeting also adopted an environment and health strategy whose main thrust is to strengthen the capacity of countries to improve the health of people through the development and implementataion of policies and advocacy in the management of environmental health. In adopting the immunization strategy, the meeting urged Member States to re-orient their national strategic IEC plans to cover the period 2003-2005 with emphasis on strengthening immunization systems, accelerating disease control, particularly polio eradication, neonatal tetanus elimination, measles and yellow fever control, and the introduction of new vaccines.

Other issues discussed by the meeting included the health component of the New Partnership for Africa's Development and the Global Fund to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria.

Three roundtables discussed health financing, cardiovascular disease factor reduction and the health sector response to the dual epidemic of TB and HIV/AIDS,

The five-day meeting was attended by health Ministers (or their representatives) from 46 MEMBER States in the WHO African Region, senior officials including WHO Director General Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland, WHO Regional Director for Africa Dr Ebrahim M. Samba, the Director of Programme Management at the WHO Regional Office for Africa, Dr Luis G. Sambo, WHO Representatives in the African Region, representatives of bilateral and multilateral organizations including IGOs, NGOs and Funds and Programmes of the United nations System as well as other institutions and organizations working to improve the health situation Africa.

The 53rd session of the Regional Committee is expected to be held from 1 to 5 September 2003 in South Africa.

For further information, please contact Samuel T. Ajibola
Public Information and Communication Unit
World Health Organization - Regional Office for Africa
P.O. Box 6 Brazzaville, Congo.
Tel: + 1 321 953 9378; Fax: 1 321 953 9513
In Harare: Mobile 091 231 405