The WHO Regional Office for Western Pacific (WPRO) has conducted Asia Pacific Strategy for Emerging Diseases (APSED) planning and review in Mongolia from 24-28 January. All relevant stakeholders as national staff working in human and animal health sector, laboratory specialists, communication officers, state inspectors and state emergency officers were involved in the cross-sectoral review. Dr. Babatunde Olowokure, Coordinator of Emerging Disease Surveillance and Response Department at the WPRO, Mr. Graham Rady, Monitoring and Evaluation Consultant and Dr. Ariuntuya Ochirpurev, Emerging Disease Surveillance and Response Technical Officer in the WHO Country Office in Mongolia have led the review process going on field visits, conducting consultative meetings, interviews and group discussions with the national counterparts and reviewing relevant documents.
The mission has visited the Ministry of Health and Sports and its Emergency Operations Centre, the National Centre for Communicable Diseases, the National Centre for Zoonotic Diseases, the Public Health Institute and Emergency Operations Units at the three organizations as well as the National Emergency Management Agency and the General Agency for State Inspection.
APSED, devised in 2005, serves as a common strategic framework for countries and areas of the region to strengthen their capacity to manage and respond to emerging disease threats. The APSED focus areas include surveillance and response, laboratory diagnostic capacity, improved collaboration between the human and animal health sectors, infection prevention and control practices, risk communication, public health emergency preparedness and systems for monitoring and evaluation.
APSED’s five year circle has ended in 2015 and a new document is being developed to define a future direction and new approaches of implementation of the Strategy. WPRO has been conducting broad consultative process in order to reflect upon the achievements of the current APSED (2010) and further support progress of the member states towards meeting the obligations under the International Health Regulations (IHR, 2005). Mongolia has been selected one of the sites for the review alongside Vietnam, Indonesia, Lao and Nepal.