Date:22/09/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/22/stories/2008092251120902.htm

Miscellaneous - This Day That Age

dated September 22, 1958: WHO report

The people throughout the South-East Asia region demand a bigger and better share of modern public health services and the demand comes especially from the rural areas, long regarded as “resistant” to scientific medicines, according to the annual survey of the WHO’s work in the South-East Asia region. The survey forms the introduction to the tenth annual report of the Regional Director, Dr. C. Mani, which he presents to the Governments of the region. It will be considered by the WHO regional committee at its eleventh session which begins in New Delhi on September 24. The member States of WHO’s S-E Asia region are Afghanistan, Burma, Ceylon, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Thailand, France, Portugal and the United Kingdom. The survey mentioned the difficulties encountered in the WHO health work in the region as follows: “Health departments are still harassed by Ministries of Finance, shortages of trained and semi-trained personnel remain as acute as ever, training programmes are neither well-planned nor well executed and red tape is a formidable barrier.”