WONCA and WHO News

October, 2019

A two-day consultative meeting was held at the WHO AFRO offices in Congo Brazaville on the 13-14 August 2019. This meeting came as a result of the active participation of Dr Prosper Tumussime at the WONCA Africa conference in June 2019, in Kampala, Uganda. The need for WONCA Africa and WHO AFRO to work together to strengthen health systems in African countries became apparent.

October, 2019

Viviana Martinez-Bianchi, WONCA Executive Member-at Large and WHO Liaison person was the WONCA Delegate to the UN High Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage. September 23, 2019. Now we have a political declaration signed by all member countries of the UN. WONCA invites member organisations to review the declaration

August, 2019

The first consultation meeting of the Primary Health Care Measurement and Improvement Initiative of the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region was held in Cairo WHO EMRO regional office. It was great to see WONCA EMR being given equal billing on this initiative with WHO EMRO, UNICEF and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (which is funding this initiative).

June, 2019

Viviana Martinez-Bianchi, MD, WONCA WHO liaison person, recently attended the World Health Assembly (WHA) as part of the WONCA delegation and submits this report from WHA72. This is my third year in Geneva as WONCA’s WHO Liaison, and I perceived a difference this time. A real and new awareness that what the world needs to improve health outcomes is for the majority of care to be delivered by Primary Health Care (PHC), through the work of interdisciplinary teams, and that these teams need to be well trained, well organized, well supported and well-funded to succeed.

March, 2019

Dr Ruth Wilson of Canada, reports on the WHO consultative meeting “Implementing WHO’s Global Patient Safety Challenge: Medication without harm. Country guidance.” The meeting took place from November 22 – 23, 2018, in Geneva.

November, 2018

It is with great pleasure that the WHO GCM/NCD Secretariat​ has announced that the Knowledge Action Portal has officially launched. This is a community driven platform for NCD information, interaction and inspiration.

November, 2018

Domingo Orozco-Beltrán, WONCA Special Interest Group on NCDs convener, reports on the General Meeting of the WHO Global Coordination Mechanism on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases (GCM/NCD) held in Geneva, 5-6 November 2018.

November, 2018

Alan Abelsohn, past chair of WONCA Working Party on the Environment (WPEnv) reports: Alice McGushin (Vice Chair WPEnv) and I attended the first WHO Global Conference on Air Pollution and Health, in Geneva, on 30 October-1 November 2018. ​

October, 2018

WONCA was represented at the "Global Conference on Primary Health Care", in Astana, Kazakhstan by the President, Immediate Past President, President- Elect, Young Doctor Movement representative, and two Executive Members-at-large. WONCA notes that the Declaration no longer includes the specific mentioning of family doctors or any other members of the primary healthcare teams. The prior public draft did include different disciplines needed in the Primary Health Care (PHC) team, but these have all been removed in the final version signed by Member States. Wehad hoped and strongly advocated for Family Medicine to be specifically included in the declaration.

June, 2018

Dr Ahmed Al-Mandhari was appointed as WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean by WHO’s Executive Board at its 143rd session and assumed office on 1 June 2018.