The new office will enhance the role of WHO in assisting these Micronesian countries with their health challenges. Dr. Shin Young-Soo, the World Health Organization’s Regional Director of the Western Pacific, officially opened the WHO Country Liaison Office. The ambassadors to the FSM of Australia, Japan and the United States, were among those who attended the opening ceremony.
“The country office of WHO is in Suva, Fiji,” Minister of Health Stevenson Kuartei said in an interview. “It’s for the whole Pacific. The problem is it’s too far. They serve really well the countries in the Southern Pacific, but not in the Northern Pacific. So they opened an office in Pohnpei to serve FSM, RMI and Palau.”
Kuartei said that Dr. Boris Pavlin, the Country Liaison Officer in Pohnpei office, is coming to Palau next month to talk about what the office can do. Pavlin has been working in Pohnpei for the past two years on infectious disease outbreak detection and control.
“Basically the office is there to assist the countries to implement the biennial budget that we get from WHO,” Kuartei explained. “Palau gets $120,000 from WHO to run various projects.”
Palau has used the money mainly to support human resources programs, Kuartei said. “Half of the money is used to support the MOH education center and send students to Cebu Medical Center in the Philippines,” he said.
According to Shin, the Country Liaison Office will be a “one-stop shop for interacting with WHO.”
Aside from infectious diseases, Pacific islanders are now facing new health challenges in the form of non-communicable diseases, such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, tobacco use and cancer.
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