Today, February 6, Minister of Health Hosams Abu Meri met with the new head of the European Regional Office of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Latvia, Karina Zālītis, who took up her position at the beginning of this year. During the meeting, the planned activities of the cooperation strategy of the WHO and the Ministry of Health were discussed, as well as areas in which Latvia could further cooperate with the WHO and attract international expertise.
Minister of Health Hosam Abu Meri congratulated Karina Zālītis on taking office. The head of the representative office has also previously worked at the Ministry of Health, including in the period from 2013 to 2021, she held the position of health advisor to the Ministry of Health at the Permanent Representation of Latvia to the European Union in Brussels. Karīna Zālīte, head of the new WHO representative office in Latvia, previously worked in the Digital Health Department of the Directorate General for Health and Food Safety of the European Commission.
Latvian and WHO Cooperation Strategy 2024-2025. includes a wide range of cooperation activities between Latvia and the WHO in such areas as digital transformation of health, prevention and health literacy, and analysis of the world experience of financing the health care system. We highly appreciate the expertise provided by WHO experts, and hope for even closer cooperation in creating the health care system to make it more efficient and accessible to our citizens. It is important that we agree that one of the biggest challenges and strategically important issues is an effective health promotion strategy, we hope for the support of WHO experts in finding out good practices in the world and for consultations in the implementation of effective action plans in the field of health promotion in Latvia,” emphasized Minister of Health Hosams Abu Meri.
Currently, cooperation on the quality of treatment and patient experience, as well as the availability of medicines, which takes place in cooperation with Estonian experts, has also been started, as well as the renewal of the initiative for the annual experience and knowledge exchange platform of Baltic health ministers and experts. Also, work continues on the evaluation of Latvia’s rehabilitation system, which began in 2023, while a cooperation project with WHO mental health experts has already been implemented, conducting an in-depth evaluation of Latvia’s psychiatric care system.
In March, the Baltic policy dialogue will be held in Riga, in which the health ministers of the three Baltic states, health policy makers, as well as international experts will participate. It is organized by the Ministries of Health of the Baltic States, the WHO European Regional Office and the European Center for Health Systems and Policy Observatory. The main topic of the event this year will be – Towards digitally enabled integrated primary care. On the other hand, within the format of the WHO Small Countries Initiative, the central topic of discussions this year will be the topic of fighting cancer.
For Latvia, cooperation with the WHO is essential, as the organization provides a wide range of top-quality expertise that health policy makers and health care workers use in their daily lives. WHO supports, including financially, the organization of events and the participation of Latvian representatives in international events. Latvia makes an annual mandatory contribution to the WHO central budget, which last year reached around 200,000 euros. In addition, Latvia will make a voluntary contribution of EUR 50,000 to help ensure the operation of the WHO European Office for the Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD Office) in Copenhagen, which was moved there from Moscow after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
2024-02-06 18:47:17
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