At the kind invitation of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) secretariat, Dr Anne Wilson head of the IHR-S project, was invited to and attended the first ASEAN Health Security Partners-Stakeholder meeting in Bangkok (July 27th-29th).
This meeting was co-chaired by the Singapore Ministry of Health and Canada Global Affairs, with all ten ASEAN nations [1] represented and over 12 international partners present. The 3 days allowed the sharing of work presently ongoing under the ASEAN Health Cluster 2 work program and ASEAN’s recent plans for a new ASEAN Centre for Public Health Emergencies and Emerging Diseases (ACPHEED). Partners also shared highlights of their activity in the region.
This important meeting enabled the IHR strengthening project to follow up on recent visits to a number of countries in the region and to continue its scoping and exploration of possible future IHR strengthening activity in the coming months and years. Through attendance at this meeting existing partnerships were strengthened, and fruitful discussions were had on how the IHR-S project might better understand the priority IHR needs in the region and how best the project might collaborate going forward.
