THE Minister of Health, Dato Seri Setia Dr Awang Haji Zulkarnain bin Haji Hanafi, attended ‘The “Belt and Road” High Level Meeting For Health Cooperation: Towards A Health Silk Road’ in Beijing, China from August 18-20.
The meeting themed ‘Build Health Belt and Road, Share Health Development’ is one of the agenda in the ‘Belt and Road’ Initiatives introduced by the President of the People’s Republic of China in 2013.
The initiative brings together more than 60 countries from Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa along the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Maritimes Silk Road (the ‘Belt and Road’), according to a press release.
It is an effort to develop the global economy and connectivity in areas such as trade, infrastructure, finance, investment, culture and education among the Belt and Road countries, the release said.
The forum convened health ministers, senior officials, representatives from international health bodies, scholars and delegates of health industries to further facilitate and strengthen health cooperation among the countries.
With the vision ‘Towards a Health Silk Road’, China and all the countries involved have plans of cooperating in several health priority areas, including prevention and control of infectious disease, healthcare capacity building, personnel training, and exchange and promotion of traditional medicine.
In the plenary session, Dato Seri Setia Dr Awang Haji Zulkarnain expressed Brunei Darussalam’s firm support for the framework of the ‘Belt and Road’ Initiatives for Health Cooperation. He stated that the initiative plays an important role as a common platform to find solutions in addressing health issues.
The minister also shared that the Health Silk Road can achieve its aspiration of building sustainable development through a holistic approach which emphasises on the ‘Health is everyone’s business’ agenda. This can be reached through engagement between the health system and the wider community through multi-sectoral collaborations that deliver behavioural change at the population level.
The Brunei delegation had the opportunity to meet the Vice-Premier of China, Liu Yan Dong and China’s Minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission, Li Bin. The meetings discussed bilateral cooperation and matters contributing towards continuous improvement of healthcare delivery through collaborative projects between Brunei Darussalam and the People’s Republic of China.
The delegation also had a bilateral meeting with the Director-General of World Health Organization (WHO), Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, to discuss current health policy issues.
The programme of the ‘Belt and Road’ Forum for Health Cooperation included thematic sessions which discussed vaccine safety, maternal and child health nutrition and the importance towards global sustainable health development, innovation-driven sustainable health development and hospital cooperation.
The delegation also attended roundtable discussions on matters surrounding the International Accre-ditation and Supervision, International Investment and Trade, Global Health Youth Leaders and the importance of exercise in people’s lifestyle. During the sessions, the delegates shared Brunei Darussalam’s experiences with the rest of the participants.
As part of the programme, the Brunei Darussalam delegation also made working visits to the China Health Industry Expo, and several healthcare institutions in Beijing including the China National Pharmaceutical Group Corporation, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, General Electric (GE) Healthcare, Zhongguancun life science park and medical imaging companies.
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