Health progress outlined

The World Health Organisation and the Ministry of Labour, Healthcare and Social Affairs of Georgia held a special presentation at Hotel Vere Palace on December 22 to summarise the outcomes of their two-year cycle of cooperation and give recommendations for the next two years.

Otar Toidze, Chairman of Parliament's Healthcare and Social Issues Committee, welcomed the guests and thanked them for their active cooperation on different projects. He stressed the importance of 2009 as a year of progress in healthcare. “I think we are absolutely ready for qualitative changes. We have worked out a system of estimation which will mean we can evaluate the situation on the basis of facts and figures,” he stated.

Rusudan Klimiashvili, Head of the World Health Organisation in Georgia, spoke about the difficulties of 2008-2009. She stressed the importance of the regional meeting in Georgia in September 2008 at which Ministers of 53 states held consultations and signed resolutions. “Our organisation has quite a long history but we continue to develop our main strategies, including the Information Systems and Medical Statistics Strategy. No decision can be made without correct information about health conditions and an improved statistical database,” explained Klimiashvili.

Sophia Lebanidze, Head of the Medical Department of the Ministry of Health, outlined the main principles of the latest reform of the Ministry, which include developing an insurance system, improving the physical and financial accessibility of the medical service and protecting people in the event of operations involving financial risk. “This is not only a subsidy programme but one which encourages the active cooperation of society with the insurance system,” Lebanidze noted. “There are still some issues, especially in the insurance system, which should be clarified but we are really proud of our cooperation with the WHO and the research we have undertaken together,” she concluded.

Ute Enderlin and Amiran Gamkrelidze, WHO local representatives, outlined the rights, obligations and procedures of the WHO and its member states. They said that the Global Health Agenda for the next few years will include investing in health to reduce poverty, building individual and global health security, promoting universal coverage, gender equality and health related human rights, harnessing knowledge, science and technology and strengthening governance, leadership and accountability.

Khatuna Zakhashvili, Chief of the Surveillance Unit of the National Centre for Disease Control and Public Health (NCDC), stressed the importance of the International Health Regulations system. “The IHR is a global document also implemented in Georgia as the main document on which to develop strategies in healthcare. The IHR provides a connection between different structures of the various Ministries of Georgia. The implementation of IHR is a long process but we have already tried to adopt the relevant terminology, provide training and improve the qualification system of physicians and the national surveillance guidelines,” explained Zakhashvili.

Tengiz Tsertsvadze, General Director of the Infectious Diseases, AIDS and Clinical Immunology Research Centre, delivered a detailed presentation on the H1N1 virus. “The virus which we call swine flu developed through a realignment of four different viruses. The main symptoms of influenza are the sudden onset of fever or headache. If these symptoms are followed by a temperature above 38 and either a dry cold or a sore throat they become dangerous. H1N1 is a typical droplet influenza which can be mild or non-severe but with indications that it might progress to severe. Fortunately, medicine like Tamiflu and Relenza can impede the spread of infection,” noted Tsertsvadze.

The NCDC and Infectious Diseases, AIDS and Clinical Immunology Research Centre said that the swine flu pandemic had been first declared on June 11, 2009 by Margaret Chan, Director of the WHO. Effective protection mechanisms against the disease had been introduced in Georgia just before then. The first case of infection in Georgia, discovered on June 17, was advanced. To date there have been 849 cases of infection in Georgia, of which 61 have been imported. The pandemic has spread to all regions of Georgia and there have been 7 fatalities.