Annual Meeting of the Nippon Foundation Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation Advisory Board, Opening Remarks, 17-18 October 2005, WHO/SEARO, New Delhi, India

Opening Remarks By Dr Samlee Plianbangchang Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia at Annual Meeting of the Nippon Foundation Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation Advisory Board WHO South-East Asia Region, India 17-18 October 2005 2 Annual Meeting of the Nippon Foundation Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation Advisory Board 17-18October 2005 WHO South East Asia Region, India Opening Remarks by DR SAMLEE PLIANBANGCHANG REGIONAL DIRECTOR, WHO SOUTH-EAST ASIA Professor Kiikuni, Chair, Sasakawa Memorial; Distinguished members of the Advisory Board of the Foundation; Dr Noordeen, Dr Yuasa, Dr Feenstra Colleagues; Ladies and gentlemen, • It is with great pleasure that, I extend a very warm welcome to you all. • Let me start by thanking wholeheartedly the Nippon Foundation and the Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation. • Also, we gratefully thank Mr Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination. • We deeply appreciate the sustained support extended by the Foundations to WHO in pursuing the global leprosy elimination programme over the last thirty years. 3 • It is a great honour and privilege to have the opportunity of hosting this board meeting for the fourth successive year. • This occasion is particularly significant since the Global Leprosy Programme is now located in this Regional Office, which handles support to the geographical area with the highest burden of leprosy cases. • It is also a special privilege to welcome our colleagues from WHO Headquarters as well as from the Regional Offices for Africa, the Western Pacific and the Americas. • This annual meeting provides us the opportunity to share information on the achievements, as well as the remaining issues and challenges in our efforts to eliminate leprosy. • We will review our strengths, discuss our weaknesses, and jointly plan for future endeavours. • Certainly, the process to move forward, we still need support from our main partner – the Nippon Foundation and the Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation. Ladies and gentlemen, • It is heartening to see the steady decline in the global leprosy burden. • At the beginning of this year, the world-wide leprosy prevalence was below 300,000 cases. 4 • The annual new case detections last year totalled 407,000 cases. • This indicates a very satisfactory achievement in the global reduction of the leprosy case load. • Only nine major countries are yet to achieve the goal of leprosy elimination. • Six countries are in Africa, one in the Americas and two in South- East Asia. • The complete list also includes a number of small countries with a population of less than one million each. • I am pleased to report that South-East Asia Region is very near to achieving the goal of leprosy elimination. • The regional leprosy prevalence rate as of July this year was 1.04 per 10,000 population. • It is expected to dip further to that below 1 per 10,000 by the end of this year. • Though, South-East Asia would be the last WHO Region to achieve this goal, • This is a remarkable achievement, considering that the Region carried the heaviest load of the global leprosy cases 5 • I wish to place on record the unwavering commitment and concerted efforts of Member States in the Region, in striving towards this significant milestone. • It should be specially noted in this connection that India, is moving steadily towards the leprosy elimination goal by the end of this year. • This country carries the biggest burden of the disease in the world. • As a result of intensified efforts, leprosy prevalence and case detection in India has moved towards a dramatic decline d uring the past two years. • The Region still has two other countries which may find it difficult to reach the goal by this year. • These are Nepal and Timor-Leste. • We are now focusing our efforts on these two countries. • There is every possibility that Nepal will achieve the goal by next year, and Timor-Leste by 2007. Distinguished board members, • Together, we have achieved truly remarkable progress in leprosy elimination over the past two decades. • In 1985, there were 122 countries, all with the prevalence rate of more than one case per 10,000 population. 6 • Today, there are fewer than 10 countries in this category. • One hundred and thirteen countries have already achieved the leprosy elimination goal. • It is a major and commendable gain in international public health work, which has been achieved through the combined efforts of concerned national governments and their partners, which include international agencies and nongovernmental organizations. • This is really a significant contribution to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals. • However, at this particular point in time, there is still a lot of work to be accomplished. • The top priority is to strive for timely achievement of the goal of elimination for the world in the remaining 9 countries. • Then, we have to work hard towards sub-national elimination in the individual countries to further reduce the disease burden of leprosy. • As the new cases continue to decline, this situation poses its own challenges. • We have to intensify our efforts to ensure sustained political commitment; and to ensure adequate resources to maintain the gains achieved and the quality of services. 7 • We will have to continue enhancing knowledge and skills of the general health service staff; and ensuring that persons with deformity will continue receiving proper treatment and care. • Fortunately, WHO’s leprosy programme has not faced serious resource constraints. • We gratefully thank the Nippon Foundation/ the Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation for the generous support provided to the programme since 1975. • The programme also benefited from the free supply of drugs to all endemic countries. • This was due to the funds provided from the Nippon Foundation, which defrayed the cost of drugs between 1995 and 2000. • Then, the Novartis Foundation started supplying the drugs in 2000, and continued thereafter. • Novartis has already assured the continuation of such drug supply till 2010. • We are very grateful to both the Nippon Foundation and the Novartis Foundation for their critical assistance to the global leprosy elimination programme. • It is our hope that the Nippon Foundation/ the Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation would continue their generous support beyond 2005. 8 • This is to ensure that we will be able to continue to address effectively the unfinished agenda; and to ensure the sustainability of quality services of the programme. • This will enable WHO to maintain its continued back up to countries in their efforts to achieve sub-national elimination; which will further reduce the disease burden at all levels of operation. • The partnership between the Nippon Foundation/ the Sasakawa Memorial Health Foundation and WHO has indeed grown in intensity and strength. • We hope it would continue until we could reach, not just only the target of leprosy elimination, but also the ultimate goal of a leprosy- free world. • WHO has developed global as well as regional strategic plans for the period 2006-2010; this is to further tackle the remaining challenges in leprosy elimination. • We are very much expecting the full consideration by the Advisory Board of these plans. • This two-day meeting is intended specifically to review and finalize the strategic as well as action plans for 2006, for which further support of the Foundations is indispensable for indeed their implementation. 9 Ladies and Gentleman, • I wish you all success in fulfilling the meeting objectives, and wish you all a pleasant stay in Delhi. M:\RD- OFFICE\ Speeches \ 2005\ For RD \ OR by RD Nipp Found Sasakawa Memorial Health foundation advisory board with who SEAR 17- 18 OCt 05 Corrected after delivery) 17 Oct 2005