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RHD Action at the World Health Assembly

24 May 2016
Some 3500 delegates from WHO’s 194 Member States – including a large proportion of the world’s health ministers - are attending the Health Assembly, which ends on 28 May.
WHO / L. Cipriani

Introduction to the WHA

This week, the World Heart Federation (WHF), a founding member of RHD Action, is attending the 69th World Health Assembly, this year held from 23-28 May in the UN Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.
 
The World Health Assembly (WHA) is the main decision-making & governing body of the World Health Organization (WHO), where countries – or ‘Member States’ – debate and decide on key global health issues. The agenda is largely determined by the WHO Executive Board meeting, which last met from 25-30 January in Geneva.
 

The WHF advocacy team will work throughout the week to raise RHD as a global health priority, by making statements, organizing meetings and through promoting the new RHD Global Status Report 2015-2017.

 

WHF Statements during the WHA

The WHF will deliver official WHA statements on two agenda items that concern rheumatic heart disease. The first statement addresses the need to include RHD prevention and treatment in the Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s and Adolescents’ Health. We will advocate that, as RHD disproportionately affects women, children and adolescents, Member States must include specific RHD interventions (such as RHD registers) in the Strategy’s operational plan.

The second statement will be made during the session on ‘Addressing the global shortages of medicines’, where Member States will discuss a resolution on improving the supply of medicines worldwide. This topic is particularly relevant to the RHD community as there have been shortages of benzathine penicillin G (BPG) in various countries around the world in recent years. RHD Action will therefore call for a coordinated global effort to ensure a consistent supply of BPG and take action against current stock-outs.

RHD Global Status Report

The WHF will be distributing copies of the recently published ‘RHD Global Status Report 2015-2017’ to key stakeholders at the WHA, including Ministers of Health and other key decision-makers.
 
The report provides global insights into ongoing efforts to combat rheumatic heart disease, featuring interviews with people living with RHD and health workers, summaries of existing policies on RHD, and programme case studies from around the world.

Keep up to date!

You can stay up to date with all RHD Action activity at this year’s World Health Assembly via Twitter, and via updates on the RHD Action website.