Kuwait pays utmost care for health issues in Arab region

Kuwaiti Health Minister Dr. Ali Al-Obeidi emphasized that Kuwait has been paying utmost attention to Arab issues in the healthcare and humanitarian fronts through initiating activities and setting up conferences. The Kuwaiti Minister pointed out that some of the initiations created by Kuwait is the soon-to-be-held 25th session of the Arab Summit on March 25-26 in Kuwait, the Donors's Conference for the Syrians in January 2013 and the International Anti-counterfeiting Conference in November 2013 Al-Obeidi pointed out, in his speech in the conference, that Kuwait Declaration which was signed during the 76th meeting of the GCC Health Ministers aimed at fighting chronic non-communicable diseases which was one of the most important achievements accomplished in enhancing the health sector in the region. He added that Kuwait always follows-up on the latest recommendations announced by the international health organizations and institutions. One of the challenges that was discussed in this meeting was the health crisis of the Syrian refugees and the internally-displaced that needs to be contained and polio that keeps reoccurring in the Arab countries. Al-Obeidi stressed that there is an interchangeable link between health and development; providing a lifelong healthcare and services to the public is one of the development schemes; nonetheless, healthy individuals are needed to carry out these development plans; hence, there is a necessity to eliminate or lessen the effects of some health issues that might hurdle the development process such as: smoking, obesity, bad nutrition and lethargy. Speaking to KUNA, after the end of the meeting, Al-Obeidi said that some of the essential topics were approved such as the health situation of the Syrian refugees and the displaced, strategy to fight the HIV/AIDS disease, maternity health and wellbeing and polio affecting Syrian children. He said that the council granted USD 100,000 to support the health condition in the Palestinian territories and USD 200,000 to Egypt for supporting the Syrians in their appalling health state. Some of the matters that were approved were pharmaceutical integration among Arab countries, the establishment of a center for the protection of patients' rights, the management of hazardous pharmaceutical waste and countering chronic non-communicable diseases. Following-up on agreements made during the "ASPA" summit, held in Peru 2012, as well as the "Lime Declaration" that focused on holding joint cooperation between the Arab Health Ministers Council and South American countries were also discussed. The meeting agreed on preparing for the Arab Economic and Social Development conference due to be held in Tunisia in 2015.