Professor Dr. Her Royal Highness Princess Chulabhorn Mahidol
Director-General of WHO Dr. Tedros
Distinguished delegates of the Thailand Embassy in Geneva,
Representatives from the Chulabhorn Research Institute (CRI),
And all esteemed colleagues gathered here today.
A good morning to you all. Let me start by expressing my regret that unfortunately prior work commitments have not allowed me to be with you in person today. Nonetheless, I am grateful to Dr. Tedros for affording me this opportunity to share my remarks with you.
The visit of Her Royal Highness and her team to our WHO HQ in Geneva underscores the depth of the commitment of the collaboration between CRI and WHO in the cause of public health.
It is noteworthy that the collaboration between WHO and CRI is almost 20 years old. It was in December 2005 that WHO first designated CRI as a Collaborating Centre.
Today, this collaboration covers several areas.
Firstly, it looks at environmental and occupational health, toxicology, and risk assessment. In this field, it promotes and assists capacity building activities and awareness.
Next, it conducts and promotes collaborative research in environmental health science. Here, it focuses on emerging national and international problems in vulnerable groups such as children.
Third, it promotes and maintains linkages with relevant centers, particularly in the WHO South-East Asia and Western Pacific Regions.
Finally, the collaborations allow CRI to act as a Regional Centre for Training in Chemical Safety.
The importance of this cooperation between our two organizations cannot be overstated.
The impacts of climate change are being felt across the world and has massive disruptions to public health. Ours is one the most vulnerable WHO Region to climate change. This has the potential to affecting and disrupt entire health systems and the most vulnerable populations.
Almost all the cities in our region suffer from air pollution, and some 2.4 million deaths annually in our Region are attributed to this.
Chemicals - both natural and manufactured - are a huge factor in our Region, particularly in informal sectors. Alarmingly, 1 in 5 suicides is linked to hazardous pesticides.
Clearly, there is a lot of work for us all to do.
Against this backdrop, I am pleased that our South-East Asia Regional Office has such a strong and longstanding relationship with CRI.
As SEARO, we are committed to building this relationship further, and deepening our ties.
We are extremely happy to be a part of the 9th Princess Science Congress in December 2024 in Bangkok and would like to assure you of SEARO’s support of the Congress.
My office looks forward to participating, and also to the continued participation of our Member States.
We would also like to invite CRI to be involved in SEARO’s future work in emerging dimensions of environment and health. These include strengthening poison centers, and regional initiatives on microplastics and plastic pollution. We also look forward to your involvement in the Asia Pacific Regional Forum on Health and Environment.
I would like to take this opportunity to also invite Her Royal Highness to our SEARO Office in New Delhi. I look forward to meeting you in person, so that we may continue to shape the future of our long partnership through our discussions.
My vision for our South-East Asia Region is a collective of communities where each person is physically and mentally empowered to achieve their full potential.
I believe that our continued ties, and deepened bonds, will help us make this vision a reality together.
Thank you.