Arab League eager to cooperate with WHO to tackle non-communicable diseases

CAIRO, Feb 4 (KUNA) -- The Arab League confirmed on Sunday their eagerness to cooperate with the World Health Organization (WHO) in tackling non-communicable diseases.
This came during a speech Consultant Khamis Al-Busaidi, Director of the civil society organization of the Arab League, gave during the Arab Forum of Cancer Associations in the League's general secretariat headquarters in Cairo.
Al-Busaidi stressed the League's eagerness by signing a memorandum of understanding between the general secretariat and the regional office in December 2009. As well as, the resolutions of the third Arab Economic and Social Development Summit in Riyadh in 2013, which called for paying more attention to non-communicable diseases as it posed a great challenge to society and development efforts in Arab countries.
He added that the forum marked the celebration of World Cancer Day, on February Fourth, which is a unified global initiative led by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) since 2000. The purpose of it is to raise global awareness and to stimulate government, civil, and individual action. It is also an annual event to show national and global efforts to combat cancer and display the achievements of saving the lives of millions from death through increasing global awareness.
He pointed out the general secretariat's role in accelerating the development of policies, strategies, programs, and action plans on social determinants of health and involving community engagement and international cooperation to solve these determinants to achieve one of the 2030 millennium development goals.
He added that during the fourth session of the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit in Beirut in 2019, Arab leaders adopted the regional initiative for women's health in the Arab region to build a national effort to combat breast cancer.
The initiative included training human resources preparing regional guidelines on how to provide primary healthcare and urging Arab countries to develop registration systems for breast cancer cases, he explained. A database that contains all the necessary information would help provide faster healthcare to patients and easier follow-up processes.
Al-Busaidi stressed that holding this forum under the auspices of the League of Arab showed deep awareness of the necessity of official and civil efforts in strengthening the steadfastness of all cancer patients in Arab countries, supporting them through their treatment, and standing by their sides through providing the needed psychological support to recover.
Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Egyptian Society for Supporting Cancer Patients, Dr. Mohsen Mokhtar, mentioned in a speech the efforts made by the society to support the patients and relieve them of the pressures accompanied by cancer. The forum discussed in two sessions the role of community institutions for patients from a medical point of view and the contributions of associations in psychological support for oncology patients. (end) mfm.fk