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11:01 GMT
GENEVA, May 19 (KUNA) -- The 61st World Health Asssembly kicked off on
Monday in Geneva with a minute of silence for thousands of the Cyclone victims
in Myanmar and the other thousands of victims of the earthquake in China.
The representative of Myanmar, ambassador Wunna Maung Lwin to the UN in
Geneva, then addressed the 61st WHA.
Wunna Maung Lwin said that his country was hit by the most serious natural
disaster in its history, and resulted in the death of more than 77,000 people
reported dead and more than 55,000 missing.
He added that foreign aid has been ferried through chartered aircraft and
that so far some 64 aircraft and two naval ships have transported relief goods
as well as 20 cargo planes.
Lwin said the total cash received amounts to USD 1.62 million and that 296.
71 tons of relief supplies were received from foreign donors up to 16 May.
He added that his country is in need FOR 200 medical doctors and nurses
from Myanmar's five immediate neighbors: Bangladesh, China, India, Laos and
Thailand.
The minister of health of the People's Republic of China Professor Chen Zhu
acknowledged that his country first received aid from Chinese compatriots in
Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
Representative of the UN Secretary-General Sergei Ordzhonikidze said that
the human and economic toll of disease is simply not acceptable.
He added that now soaring food crisis have now intervened to not only
create additional obstacles to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDG)
but that they may actually undo some of the gains already made in the fight
against hunger and malnutrition.
Ordzhonikidze noted that the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon will convene
a high level event on the MDG in New York next September.
He stressed that this year should be marked in the progress towards those
goals, this could only be achieved if efforts are scaled up to achieve them
including the area of public health.
"Protection of Global Health must be an integral part of the Climate Change
agenda," he said.
Geneva Canton Councilor of State Pierre Francois Unger, told the opening
meeting this morning, that non-communicable diseases are responsible in Europe
for 86 % of all deaths.
He added that in Switzerland the number of people who are overweight are
increasing by 50,000 every year.
In addition, he said that in one of the wealthiest countries, that is
Switzerland, of the world people eat poorly and people don't move enough.
"If this problem is not dealt with, twenty years from now one third of the
population will be suffering from Obesity and its associated illnesses," he
said.
He added that Geneva has decided to join the "European Depression Alliance
Program" to find better means to deal with people with depression and to
promote early diagnosis.
"Up to 121 million people are suffering from depression worldwide and we
think that this figure is an underestimation, 15 percent of people with
depression commit suicide, and 56 percent attempt to do so at least once," he
added.
Unger said that by European predictions by 2020 depression will hold the
first or second place in terms of the morbidity burden in Europe. (end)
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