Dr Zaliha Mustafa became the first Malaysian health minister who was given the opportunity to chair the 152nd session of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) executive board meeting in Geneva, Switzerland.
Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said it was the first time in history and also in his 10 years of involvement in WHO that Malaysia had been given the privilege to chair the executive board meeting.
Zaliha (above) chaired the meeting after she was appointed vice chair of the WHO executive board, representing the Western Pacific region for 2023-2024.
According to a statement from the health minister's office, this is a major milestone for Zaliha in her first official visit to a foreign country since being appointed to the post.
She was accompanied in the meeting by Noor Hisham and officers from the ministry.
"It was the first time in history our health minister chaired the 152nd WHO executive board meeting on poliomyelitis eradication, polio transition planning, and polio post-certification," Noor Hisham tweeted on Thursday.
Health screening
Earlier, the Sekijang MP spoke on Malaysia’s steps to progress towards universal health coverage with several priority areas, including targeted health screenings for the lower income groups to be made accessible.
"These programmes are an effort to reduce out-of-pocket spending among the bottom 40 percent of the population to access health screening services in the private sector," she said in a statement from her ministry.
Zaliha added that Malaysia also plans to improve healthcare management by implementing an improved patient database.
"We aim to decongest public clinics to enable early chronic disease management and improve efficiency across sectors by minimising overlapping of investigations through a centrally managed web-based IT system," she added during her address. - Mkini
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