Health minister shares Kuwaiti experience in dealing with COVID
CAIRO: Kuwait’s Minister of Health Khaled Al-Saeed shared the Kuwaiti experience in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Addressing the 56th regular session of the Council of Arab Health Ministers at the headquarters of the General Secretariat of the League of Arab States in Cairo, the minister noted that many Arab countries have different experiences in …
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CAIRO: Kuwait’s Minister of Health Khaled Al-Saeed shared the Kuwaiti experience in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Addressing the 56th regular session of the Council of Arab Health Ministers at the headquarters of the General Secretariat of the League of Arab States in Cairo, the minister noted that many Arab countries have different experiences in combating the COVID pandemic, pointing out that the pandemic revealed the need for the world to cooperate to fight diseases. He stressed, in this context, that there will be no country in the world which is immune from disease, epidemics and pandemics.
He stated that rich countries are trying to give vaccines to poor countries to help them, because if the epidemic is not eliminated in the poor and developing countries, it will be difficult for the rich and developed countries to get rid of the pandemic. Al-Saeed explained that the meeting discussed 14 items. The most important of which was the establishment of a promising Arab center for medicines and an Arab agency for Arab medicines, in addition to paying attention to the lessons learned from a pandemic.
He stressed the importance of transferring ideas in light of attempts to transfer vaccine technology to Egypt and Tunisia – expressing the aspiration that there will be something similar in Kuwait. Al-Saeed explained that the meeting discussed everything related to epidemiology and how to deal with the coming epidemics in light of the great importance of establishing institutions and organizations under the umbrella of the League of Arab States and the Council of Arab Health Ministers.
A high-level delegation led by Dr Khaled Al-Saeed, Minister of Health, Kuwait and accompanied by senior officials of the ministry of health visited World Health Organization’s (WHO) Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office in Cairo, Egypt where they met with Dr Ahmed Al-Mandhari, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean and senior officials at WHO. WHO resident representative in Kuwait Dr Assad Hafeez was also present during the deliberations to elucidate on details of collaborations. During the visit, Dr Al-Mandhari expressed his appreciation of WHO’s valued collaboration with Kuwait.
“Honored to meet Dr Khaled Al-Saeed, Minister of Health, to discuss future collaboration. WHO and Kuwait have worked together on key public health projects such as the healthy cities initiative to advance translation of our vision: health for all by all.” The delegation reflected on the previous period of the pandemic reiterating the strong commitment of both parties in enhancing global efforts to end the pandemic, in that regard Dr Khaled Al-Saeed noted “Our visit to WHO EMRO today was very fruitful. We are committed to work in synergy with the Country & Regional Offices to enhance our joint work, and document successful experiences especially during COVID-19 for the benefit of member states.”
The collaborative partnership between WHO and Kuwait aims to strategically target support towards enhancement of national capacities, “We look forward to the support of WHO in establishing Center of Disease Control (CDC) Kuwait, enhancing quality research in health, and jointly tackling major issues like pandemic preparedness and impact of climate change,” noted Dr Al-Saeed.
The visit ended with a joint reaffirmation to continue to work together strategically for positive impact on population health. Dr Al-Saeed shared his enthusiasm on the upcoming joint work in developing the Kuwait Country Cooperation Strategy, noting that “Kuwait Ministry of Health will work with WHO to develop the next Country Cooperation Strategy based on national vision and global targets to meet health challenges of the future.”
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