8th Annual Scientific Conference of West African Postgraduate College of Environmental Health ends

The 8th Annual Scientific Conference of the West African Postgraduate College of Environmental Health (WAPCEH), which was on the general theme "The Connection of Environmental Health, Global Health, and Determinants for a Healthy Population in the ECOWAS Region," has ended in Lome, Togo.

Delegates at the conference held at the Village du Benin, University de Lome, Togo, from September 8th to 14th, 2024, also elected new executives for fellows and environmental health practitioners.

Annually, the college's fellows meet to discuss topical issues in environmental health and release a communiqué to the governments of member countries for their urgent attention and consideration.

The conference also serves as a platform to induct new Fellows and award outstanding practitioners all over the subregion.

WAPCEH was founded by a resolution of persons with appropriate postgraduate qualifications and experience in environmental health at a West African Scientific Forum for Environmental Health Professionals held in Badagry, Lagos, Nigeria, on 22nd and 23rd June 2015.

The college aims to produce environmental health specialists of the highest standards who will provide excellent world-class services in teaching, practice, and professional research in environmental health services, a statement obtained by the Media Coalition Against Open Defecation in Ghana revealed.

The event was graced by Dr. Melehoir Athanase J.C. Aissi, the Director General of the West African Health Organization (WAHO), Professor Muostafa Mijiyawa, the immediate past Minister of Health and Public Hygiene of Togo, and Professor Agnon A. Koffi Balogou, the President, Regional Council for Health Professionals Education at WAHO.

Dr. Athanase emphasized the importance of environmental health in attaining holistic health.

He added that achieving holistic health will be highly impossible until all other health professionals follow the course of diseases and advocate for them to be addressed.

Professor A. N. Amadi of Nigeria, who is the newly elected president of the college, thanked the DG of WAHO for his continued support of the college.

The occasion also saw the conferment of college honorary awards on the three outstanding personalities who have over the years promoted the environmental health profession in West Africa.

According to the statement, the membership of the college is made up of more than a hundred practitioners with appropriate postgraduate qualifications and experience as environmental health officials.

The members were from Ghana, The Gambia, Mali, Benin, Niger, Togo, Sierra Leone, Cote d'Ivoire, Liberia, Burkina-Faso, Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Cape Verde, Cameroon, and Nigeria.

The college is supervised by the West African Health Organization (WAHO) and is one of the six WAHO recognized colleges like the West African College of Surgeons (WACS), the West African College of Physicians (WACP), the West African Postgraduate College of Pharmacy (WAPCP), the West African College of Nursing (WACN), and the West African Postgraduate College of Laboratory Scientists (WAPCLS).