The World Health Organization (WHO) is currently hosting a conference in Jakarta, Indonesia, through August 8, which is focusing on revitalizing primary health care in South-East Asia. Health care experts and member states from the region are expected to attend. The conference has been inaugurated by Aburizal Bakrie, coordinating minister for people's welfare to Republic of Indonesia. The Indonesian Minister of Health, Dr. Siti Fadilah Supari, Sp.JP(K) also attended the inauguration.

This conference is expected to build upon previous conferences and the Alma Ata Declaration of 1978. Because there have been and are gross inequities in health status within and between countries, says WHO, health is essential to social and economic development. This is the 60th anniversary of WHO, and the organization wants to revitalize primary health care in its overall efforts to improve global health, particularly for the poor.

Taking part as the keynote speakers at this conference are Dr. Halfdan Mahler, a WHO DG emeritus who has been involved in health care development for 30 years, Dr. Amorn Nondasuta, president of the foundation for quality of life Thailand an acknowledged leader of PHC in Thailand, and Ms. Erna Witoelar, the former UN Special ambassador for Millennium Development Goals in Asia and the Pacific.
The conference intends to focus on how to reduce persisting inequities in health especially by strengthening health systems in WHO member countries. WHO advocates effective, safe and good quality primary health care delivered through the health system when and where needed with minimum waste of resources, as well as equity in health and health care.

According to WHO, equity in health (health status) means the attainment by all citizens of the highest possible level of physical, psychological and social well-being. Equity in health care includes resources allocated according to need and payment for health services made according to the ability to pay.

The definition of primary health care is based on the 1978 Alma Ata Declaration and includes (1) Education concerning prevailing health problems and the methods of preventing and controlling them; (2) Promotion of food supply and proper nutrition; (3) An adequate supply of safe water and basic sanitation; (4) Maternal and child health care, including family planning; (5) Immunization against the major infectious diseases; (6) Prevention and control of locally endemic diseases; (7) Appropriate treatment of common diseases and injuries; (8) Provision of essential drugs.

More information may be found at: http://www.searo.who.int/EN/Section1243/Section2538.htm

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