Thanks to Global Health MENA for tweeting the link to this ArabHealth Blog post: Cross border collaboration to strengthen surveillance & disease control in KSA. Excerpt:
According to the WGO, the incidence of communicable diseases in Saudi Arabia is on the decline and, to maintain this trend, there is a need to strengthen the surveillance systems as well as disease control activities for communicable diseases.
Experts from the Health Ministers’ Council for GCC States in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, stress the importance of having an operational legal framework that deals with public health emergencies as well as unified cross border collaboration with other GCC countries to mitigate the effects of emerging diseases in the region.
This issue will be debated at the new Emerging Diseases of Public Health: Strategies and Interventions Conference that takes place during the Middle East’s largest healthcare exhibition, the Arab Health Exhibition & Congress, from 27-30 January 2014 at the Dubai International Convention & Exhibition Center, Dubai, UAE.
Professor Tawfik Khoja, Director General, Executive Board, Health Ministers’ Council for GCC States, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, will be presenting a keynote paper on ‘Evidence-based public health in emerging diseases in KSA’.
He will discuss the role of public health laws in Saudi Arabia, as well as the efficacy of cross-border disease-management programmes and the rapid exchange of health information through social media.
I would love to see the Saudis implement a rapid exchange of MERS information through social media. Or any other media, for that matter.
