DISTINGUISHED PARTICIPANTS, COLLEAGUES, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN
Good morning and welcome to this first meeting of the Asia Pacific Technical Advisory Group on the Asia Pacific Strategy for Emerging Diseases (2010).
I would like to thank the members of the Technical Advisory Group—or TAG—for their participation and for the valuable expertise they provided during the development of APSED (2010).
I also would like to welcome participants from countries in both the South-East Asia and Western Pacific Regions and from partner organizations for your engagement in this important subject.
You all have very busy schedules, and we are grateful that you have found time to join this regional gathering.
You may remember in July 2006, the TAG met for the first time to discuss the implementation of the original Asia Pacific Strategy for Emerging Diseases or APSED (2005).
It provided our regions with a framework to help build the capacity required under the International Health Regulations (2005).
We have made significant achievements in the last five years.
For example, all countries now have the basic surveillance and response systems to detect and respond to emerging disease outbreaks.
Countries have also access to laboratory diagnosis of influenza.
This was shown to be very useful during the influenza pandemic in 2009.
Last year, we met to update this strategy to help us build on the momentum gained under APSED (2005).
As you know, APSED (2010) provides countries with a framework to use in the coming five years to help continue to build capacity required under the International Health Regulations (2005) and to ensure we are better prepared to respond to not only emerging diseases, but other acute public health emergencies.
The broader scope of APSED (2010) has been reflected in creation of the new Division of Health Security and Emergencies in the Western Pacific Regional Office.
The new division consists of three units, emerging diseases surveillance and response, food safety, and emergency and humanitarian action.
The recent event in Japan, which consisted of the tragic combination of an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident, was the first big test of the Division's response capacity and involved all three technical units.
The common operational platform for emergency response established in the Division proved to be effective. The Japan event also taught us that it is important to continue to prepare because these threats to public health security are unpredictable.
Today your objective is to discuss the implementation of the newly updated Asia Pacific Strategy for Emerging Diseases.
I would like to encourage participants to make the most of this meeting, which provides a forum to share ideas among Member States.
I strongly encourage you to use this opportunity to work together to identify collective actions that will help ensure regional health security that benefits all.
In developing the implementation plan for APSED (2010), I encourage you to think of not only what you expect your country to achieve in the coming five years but to also consider what you expect other countries in the Region to achieve.
In this way, together we can build a safe and secure Asia Pacific region and capitalize on achievements made from working together under the agreed common framework—APSED (2010).
I highly encourage you, wherever you are from—developed or developing nations—to support one another in the spirit of collective action to ensure our Region's public health security, which contributes to global health security.
I am sure you will have very successful deliberations, and I look forward to hearing of the outcome of this meeting.
Enjoy your stay in Manila.
Thank you.