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19.04.2018 Health

World Health Organization's Regional Director For Africa Expected In Ghana

By GNA
World Health Organization's Regional Director For Africa Expected In Ghana
19.04.2018 LISTEN

Dr Rebecca Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Director for Africa, is scheduled to visit Ghana upon the invitation of Mr Kwaku Agyemen-Manu, the Minister of Health.

Dr Moeti would be received as the Guest of Honour at the 2018 Annual Health Summit, which would open in Accra on Monday, April 23, where she is expected to deliver the Keynote Address.

She would also pay courtesy calls on President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the First Lady, Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo, meet with Members of Parliament, and later embark on a field visit to the Dodowa District Hospital.

The Ministry of Health, in collaboration with the WHO Country Office, on Wednesday organised a pre-media briefing to help the press focus on the key activities for publicity.

Mr Robert Cudjoe, the Head of the Public Relations Unit, Ministry of Health, said the briefing was to provide journalists with all the needed information to enable them to report to attract public attention.

He said being her first official visit to Ghana since her assumption to the high office of the WHO Africa Regional Director, Dr Moeti's visit would provide her the opportunity to acquaint herself with ongoing efforts and progress in health development in the country, especially with Universal Health Coverage (UHC).

The visit, he said, would further facilitate a better understanding of Ghana's success factors and challenges, and set the stage for her to reaffirm the WHO's support and commitment to improving the health status of Ghanaians.

Reading a summary of her profile, he said Dr Moeti, who is from Botswana, was elected in February 2015 as the first woman WHO Regional Director for Africa.

He said as a public health veteran with more than 35 years of national and international experience, her aim in her new capacity was to build a responsive, effective and result-driven regional secretariat that could advance efforts towards achieving UHC and accelerate progress towards global development goals, while tackling other emerging threats.

Madam Joana Ansong, the Programme Officer in charge of Health Promotion of the WHO, Ghana, said Dr Moeti's passion to promoting UHC in the Region was to ensure access to quality healthcare for all without cost implications, especially for vulnerable groups.

She, therefore, appealed to the media to strongly highlight the key issues in their reportage so as to provide Dr Moeti the needed attention in her engagements with the President and policy makers.

GNA
By Christabel Addo, GNA

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