NEW DELHI, Feb 26, 2019 (BSSS) – Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque today sought global support to help improve the Bangladesh’s overall health and digital health system to fully achieve SDGs in health sector.
“Good health is a never-ending job. We remain in a challenge to sustain the achievement to finish the unfinished agenda to face the new challenges. We dream that our health SDG journey will not stop even if we face unexpected challenges,” he said.
The minister was addressing the closing ceremony of the ministerial summit of the 4th Global Digital Health Partnership, 2019 here.
The global intergovernmental meeting on digital health is being hosted by the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in collaboration with World Health Organization (WHO) and the Global Digital Health Partnership (GDHP).
As part of the high-level summit, the ministers and delegation also adopted the Delhi Declaration on digital health for sustainable development, which called for WHO’s leadership in digital health and for it to establish a specific mechanism to centrally coordinate digital health to assist its member states.
Zahid Maleque also promised that Bangladesh will strongly remain with the effort of Global Digital Health Partnership and to foster regional and international collaboration to this end.
He said Bangladesh has improved and sustained the basic health care and carried out health prevention and promotion as the most essential and available healthcare delivered at the homes or people’s doorsteps learning from local experiences and global best practices.
In this connection, he said Bangladesh has created one of the most extensive, uniformly and equitably distributed healthcare networks across the country.
“We got the dividend. We could keep the infectious diseases in control; could improve overall health situation; could attain the health-related MDGs and could manage the health emergencies reasonably well,” he added.
Listing various programmes being implemented in health sector, the minister said Bangladesh could successfully enhance community awareness on positive health practice and create community demand for preventive healthcare like routine immunization, vitamin A, deworming, and maternal, reproductive and child health care.
Union Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda, State Minister for Health Anupriya Patel, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia Region (SEARO) Dr. Poonam Khetrapal Singh and Secretary (Health) Ms. Preeti Sudan also spoke on the occasion.
Ministers and government officials from over 34 countries attended the event to discuss the impact of digital technologies on health systems and health services delivery.
Earlier, a three-member Bangladesh delegation led by Health and Family Welfare Minister Zahid Maleque arrived in New Delhi on Sunday to attend the summit.
Director General of Health Services Prof. Abul Kalam Azad also included in the delegation.