Malaysia-WHO Country Cooperation Strategy 2016-2020 Launched Tuesday

PUTRAJAYA (Malaysia), March 29 (Bernama) -- The Malaysia-World Health Organisation (WHO) Country Cooperation Strategy (CCS) 2016-2020 which was launched in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday allowed WHO to align its collaboration with Malaysia's health needs, capacities and capabilities. Health Minister Dr S Subramaniam in a statement on Tuesday said the CCS underlined four strategic priorities for the WHO collaboration with Malaysia in the coming five years. He said the CCS would facilitate multisectoral collaboration and support coordination for health and strengthen policies and capacities to build a more resilient, sustainable and responsive health system that moves even further towards universal health coverage. The Malaysia-WHO CCS would also strengthen policies and capabilities for assessing, preventing, managing, mitigating and monitoring health risks and chronic conditions in some priority technical focus areas. Those areas are the prevention and management of non-communicable diseases, conditions and their risk factors; environmental health; and risk management including disaster risk management, International Health Regulations (2005) capacities, antimicrobial resistance and risk communication. Dr Subramaniam said the Malaysia-WHO CCS would also facilitate the engagement and use of Malaysian expertise and sharing of experiences. "We hope the concerted efforts and cooperation between Malaysia and WHO will benefit the health and well-being of the people," he said adding that Malaysia's health system had come a long way since the pre-independence era with remarkable achievements and improvement. The government through the Health Ministry had provided universal and equitable access to quality health services with a safety net for all, he said. Dr Subramaniam said it was often remarked that Malaysia has good health outcomes such as improving life expectancy and low infant mortality rate, almost reaching the same level as many high income countries, all achieved at a low cost of 4.2 per cent Gross Domestic Products (GDP) on health. However, he said the challenge was on emerging issues related to non-communicable diseases. --BERNAMA