Palau supports PIHOA’s declaration of State of Health Emergency due to the epidemic of NCD in the US-affiliated Pacific islands. And it is strengthening its fight against the number one killer disease in the region by actively informing the community about it.
Minister of Health Stevenson Kuartei, who is also the President of PIHOA, just came from a PIHOA meeting in Hawaii last week, and he said they have further discussed the NCD Declaration.
“We met with Pacific Resources for Education and Learning and we agreed to engage a public information officer or PIO to make sure that message gets to everybody,” Kuartei said in an interview.
According to Kuartei, the United Nations already declared NCD as one of its top priorities, and PNG also declared war against NCD.
“So the whole idea of this fight against NCD is to involve the whole community,” Kuartei said.
Kuartei added that they are going to do a workshop where they can sit down with the media and see how they can be partners so that NCD becomes part of the media’s normal routine report.
“Whether it’s clinical, public health or infrastructure, we want to make sure that there’s a way you guys get the regular information,” Kuartei said.
He said they want to make the information more accessible to the media so they don’t need to go looking for it.
“So you just have one place to go to for information,” Kuartei said.
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