Director General of SESRIC Meets with Senior Officials in the Ministry of Health Indonesia
Date: 22 October 2010
Venue: Jakarta - Indonesia

Dr. Savaş Alpay, Director General of SESRIC, had a bilateral meeting with senior officials in the Ministry of Health Indonesia on 22 October 2010 in Jakarta, Republic of Indonesia, with Prof. Agus Purwadianto, the Head of National Board for Health Research & Development, Ministry of Health and with Mr. Trihono, Head of Ecology Research Centre.

During his visit, Dr. Alpay expressed his thanks and gratitude to the officials of the Ministry of Health for their warm welcome, and informed them on the statistical, research, training and technical cooperation activities undertaken by SESRIC in the area of health and related fields. In this regard, he called attention to the OIC Health Report, which aimed to examine the current situation in the OIC Member Countries with a view to analyzing health inequity between and within countries as a major structural source of most prevailing health problems with special reference to social determinants of health, including the distribution of power, income, and goods and services. Considering the fact that there has been a considerable policy attention to the potential of ICTs for improving health in developing countries since the last decade, Dr. Alpay pointed out that the report would assess the situation related to e-health applications in OIC Member Countries and would draw some policy recommendations for the sake of developing e-health tools and solutions.

Dr.Alpay also referred to ‘Ibn Sina Programme of OIC Health Capacity Building’ as one of the Capacity Building Programmes of the Centre. Such a Programme was developed by SESRIC to enhance cooperation and collaboration among OIC Member Countries in the field of health, in close cooperation with related national, regional and international institutions. He stated that the main objective of the Programme was to organise short-term courses and workshops with an aim to provide technical assistance through matching needs and capacities of the relevant health institutions of the OIC Member Countries according to the results of the regularly conducted surveys. Dr. Alpay added that the Programme sought to prevent epidemic diseases, including Malaria and HIV, and to improve public health in the Member Countries, through, minimizing tobacco production and consumption, promoting collective self-reliance in vaccine production and supply through strengthening National Regulatory Authorities and improving capacity for vaccine production and distribution in the Member Countries.

Following this, the Director General talked about the report on “Tobacco Control in OIC Member Countries” which was submitted to the First Islamic Conference of Ministers of Health held in 2007 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and which examined the situation of tobacco control in the OIC member countries and compared it with that of other countries in various geographical regions. Dr. Alpay also added that the report briefly presented the profound importance of ratifying the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO-FCTC) by the OIC Member States. In this connection, he underlined the Centre’s role in representing the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) at the regular Conferences of Parties to the FCTC.

The two parties agreed to increase the volume of cooperation and collaboration between the Republic of Indonesia and the Centre on health and related areas, and organise joint initiatives, projects and programmes of common interest to the OIC Member Countries.