Public Health in India and South West Asia – Challenges. The Case for Developing An Action Agenda.

11th March 2010, New Delhi, ”India’s total health care spending (1.3 % percent of the GDP) is way below most developed countries. At the same time, over 80 percent of the health care spends is in the private sector. There is a huge need to focus attention and energy towards basic public health issues in the country such as malnutrition, accessibility to potable water etc, which were a cause for huge morbidity and mortality. He mentioned that malnutrition was a big health issue in India especially keeping in mind that in years to come we would have a huge young population in the country. The Hon’ble Member of Parliament B J Panda shared his thoughts while addressing the conference ” Challenges in Public Health In India and South West Asia – The Case for Developing An Action Agenda “, organized by CII and Friends of the Fund- South and West Asia of the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, Malaria and TB.

The conference was organized by CII and Friends of the Fund- South and West Asia to highlight the issues in public health, which needed to be addressed in the Region. The network of Friends organizations supporting the Global Fund is as unique as its partnership model, providing different groups of stakeholders with equal rights of decision-making at the global and at the country levels. The uniqueness of the Friends is the fact that it is a private sector led fund with its secretariat in Confederation of India Industry (CII). At this occasion the Hon’ble Member of Parliament also released the report ” Best Practices By Corporate Sector in Health Prevention and Management- South and West Asia “.

Mr B J Panda emphasized the need for more engagement of stakeholders on social issues especially with the global stewardship of MDGs and cooperation to fight pandemics.

Prof Ranjit Roy Chaudhury in his address highlighted the findings of the National Macro Commission on Health in his address at the inaugural session. He spoke of the need for rational use of medicines, the huge gap in provision of medical services in India etc.

Mr Tarun Das, Chairman, Friends of the Fund- South and West Asia in his opening remarks acknowledged that, much work in health still remaining an unfulfilled.

Mr. Taufiqur Rahman, Regional Team Leader, Global Fund highlighted the role and focus of the Global Fund in the South and West region countries. To date, it has committed US $ 19.3 Billion in 144 countries to support large-scale prevention, treatment and care programmes against the three diseases.

Dr S J Habayeb in his address gave a brief overview of engagement of WHO in health in India. He advocated the need for partnership between the public and private sectors in Health.

In his concluding remarks, Dr Parvaiz Vazirian , Board Member , Friends of the Fund- South and West thanked the esteemed panelists for their address . He ended by saying that with partnership in the Region, much could be achieved.

The conference had a sessions on Challenging Endeavor: Diminish HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria Burden addressed by Dr Bobby John, Global Health Advocates, Ms Elizabeth Selhore from SAHARA, Dr Parvaiz Vazirain , Iran and Lalith Ramanayake, JKH , Sri Lanka .The second session focused on Emerging Issues in Health in SWA Region : The Response , was addressed by Dr Dilip Mathai, Dr Islam Hamid (Pakistan ), Mr Wahaaj (Afganistan) ,\and Mr M N Neupane ( Nepal ).

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