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The outgoing head of the World Health Organization's Western Pacific Region identified health care financing and climate change as the two gravest threats facing countries in the Asia Pacific region.

In his final address to the Regional Committee Tuesday, Dr. Shigeru Omi said more work needs to be done to strengthen regional health systems including financing and human resources development. We have not been as successful in this area as with communicable diseases. More work needs to be done, he said at the WHO regional headquarters on United Nations Avenue in Manila.

Dr. Omi said WHO has tackled the health worker crisis in a variety of ways including providing Internet-based training for health professionals in remote areas. He said the drafting of a WHO Strategic Plan for Strengthening Health Systems in the Western Pacific Region would provide solid foundation for progress in this area.

He said climate change would also affect global health security by increasing health risks in various parts of the region.

He said global warming would lead to an increase in malaria and dengue-carrying mosquitoes in areas other than their natural Southeast Asia habitat. He said climate change could also lead to a rise in sea level, which would threaten low-lying island states and areas in the Pacific.

A warmer planet has contributed to some diseases, such as dengue, now occurring in areas where it was never seen before. Heat waves and drought are among the many factors contributing to the current food crisis, he said.

Dr. Omi said global health security, particularly in the area of communicable diseases, became more significant after the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2002. He said the prevalence of the disease led WHO to declare a series of travel advisories against a number of countries and areas at the height of the SARS threat in 2003.

SARS awakened the global public health community from a kind of slumber. Before the outbreak, interest in communicable diseases had been slipping. Then suddenly public health had entered a new era demanding constant vigilance against threats from emerging and re-emerging diseases, he said.

He said regional vigilance against communicable diseases was accelerated by the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza virus less than six months after the transmission of SARS had been halted. Recognizing that the root cause of the problem was coming from animals, he said WHO partnered with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health to combat the health threat.

War against tobacco, TB deaths

Dr. Omi also outlined several areas where the WHO Regional Office had made significant progress including reducing prevalence of tuberculosis in Western Pacific countries. He said at least 1,000 people were dying daily from TB in 1999.

As a result of our intense battle against TB, we are saving 400 lives every day with the number of daily TB deaths in our region having dropped from nearly 1,000 to less than 600 over that period, he said.

In the field of tobacco control, Dr. Omi said all countries in the Western Pacific have signed the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which calls for a war on smoking through such measures as high taxes on cigarettes, a ban on tobacco advertising and more effective education campaigns.

He said WHO has made significant strides in providing universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care to those people living with HIV/AIDS and to groups at risk of infection.

He said WHO's regional office has launched an Internet-based reporting system for tracking the movement of fake drugs. This regional rapid alert system developed in our region has now been replicated around the world, he said.

He said the region is also on track to achieve elimination of measles by 2012, with a 97 percent fall in cases recorded between 2000 and 2007.

Finally, he said that child health and maternal mortality is back on the public health agenda with the development of the joint Regional Child Survival Strategy with UNICEF.