Mohammad-Hossein Niknam, the director-general of the International Affairs Department of the Ministry of Health and Medical Education, addressed the second special meeting of the World Health Assembly Special Session (WHASS) as saying that the Islamic Republic supports initiatives for urgent international reactions when it comes to worldwide human health issues.
The second WHASS meeting was held to promote preparation for facing pandemics, a venue that brought together representatives of 194 member states of the WHO for three days to develop a new document for potential pandemics in the future.
Niknam expressed satisfaction with the seminar at the important juncture to identify and evaluate the best way ahead to enhance preparations and reactions to emergency health conditions.
As to the fatal consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, he noted that the challenge is still continuing, so the world should be more prepared for possible future pandemics in order to react more properly.
Iran supports the WHO's key role in maintaining world health security as well as proposing emergency reactions, the official said, adding that the International Health Regulations (IHR) are a sort of necessary mechanism when it comes to emergency health conditions, so multilateral cooperation is needed to provide sustainable and predictable financial aids at national, regional, and international levels.
One of the most important aspects in fighting a pandemic is fair distribution of medical equipment and technological know-how among countries, especially developing ones, in order to guarantee better containment of any epidemic disease, he concluded.
Tedros Adhanom, the director general of the WHO, has called for setting up a new world order to manage health crises in the future.
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