Dmitriy Kobitskiy Participated in Meeting of CIS Advisory Board on Cooperation in Field of Public Health
19 May 2021
Today, the 23rd meeting of the CIS Advisory Board on Cooperation in the Field of Public Health took place via videoconferencing. The event brought together the heads of relevant agencies of the CIS countries, the CIS Executive Committee, the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly, the WHO Regional Office for Europe, and the WHO European Center for Primary Health Care. The meeting was chaired by First Deputy Minister of Health of the Republic of Belarus Elena Bogdan.
Chairperson of the Executive Committee – CIS Executive Secretary Sergey Lebedev addressed the participants with a welcoming speech. According to him, the Executive Committee fully supports the initiatives of the Advisory Board and attached great importance to the efforts of maintaining public health of citizens of the Commonwealth countries.
IPA CIS Council Secretary General Dmitriy Kobitskiy noted the relevance of the topic both for the CIS countries and for the whole world. He informed the participants that the international conference co-organized by the WHO and the IPA CIS “Universal Health Coverage and SDGs” was scheduled for November 2021 and invited all the stakeholders to take part in the event.
Regional Director for Europe of the World Health Organization Hans Kluge also reminded to the meeting participants about the negative consequences faced by the international community during the spread of the coronavirus infection. In this regard, universal health coverage, in particular the reforming and strengthening of the primary health care system, takes on special importance.
This issue was also addressed in the report of the Co-Chair of the Advisory Board, Minister of Healthcare of the Republic of Kazakhstan Alexey Tsoy. He stressed that the pandemic impeded access by citizens to the medical services on non-communicable diseases and caused the increase of mortality rate on reasons not directly related to COVID-19.
The members of the Board exchanged views on cooperation in the field of public health across the CIS, in particular concerning the services of primary healthcare both during the pandemic and the recovery period.
