|
The meeting was inaugurated by Dr Uton Muchtar Rafei, Regional
Director, WHO/SEARO. Dr Uton,
while welcoming the participants, emphasized the heightened concern about
emerging and re-emerging infections, viz. recent outbreak of plague in India, and the Ebola virus epidemic in
Zaire during 1995 and 1996. He referred
to the dramatic increase in the global incidence of dengue and its severe
manifestations such as DHF and DSS. In many countries of South-East Asia, DHF had become the leading
cause of hospitalization and death, and therefore characterized it as a problem
of major importance among the vector-borne diseases in humans. He identified
poor vector control activities, rapid demographic changes and ill-planned
sanitation, increase in frequency and volume of air traffic and general
deterioration in public health services as major contributory factors.
Finally, he expected that the deliberations will help to bring out the
technical deficiencies and constraints faced by countries of the South-East
Asia Region to meet such epidemic situations and make suitable recommendations
for building more efficient capabilities.
Professor,
Natth Bhamarapravati was
nominated as Chairperson, Professor Thein Thein Myint as Co-chairperson and Mr N.L. Kalra as Rapporteur.
Professor Natth Bhamarapravati,
thanked WHO/SEARO for arranging the meeting which was very truly essential.
He hoped that, based on the current knowledge with some consensus-building
and good management, the South-East Asian countries would be able to keep
dengue epidemics in check. He expressed his frustration that even after 40
years of the epidemics, South-East Asia
had not been able to build up the necessary manpower in different disciplines
related to dengue.
|
