TOKYO -- Nikkei and Nikkei Business Publications on
Friday held the third Nikkei Asian Conference on Communicable Disease in Tokyo.
The two-day conference is meant to discuss and propose how Asian countries
together tackle infectious diseases that are threatening the region.
The background
of this conference is that as more people go beyond borders with economic
development, the threat of infectious disease is spreading. For Japan, which
will host a summit of the Group of Seven countries in May and the Tokyo Olympic
Games in 2020, preventing such diseases is a key national issue.
In her
opening comments, conference co-chair Nahoko Shindo, from the Department of
Pandemic and Epidemic Diseases of the World Health Organization, warned that
destabilizing factors in global society, "including refugees and
urbanization, make the issue more complex, even if the prevention and treatment
measures [for infectious diseases] are established."
The
conference gathered about 80 experts from various fields -- government,
international organizations, academia and business. The participants came not
only from Japan, but also from Taiwan, the Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam,
Thailand and other countries.
On Friday
there were three main panel discussion sessions, covering countermeasures
against tuberculosis and Ebola, as well as ways to build an Asian common
platform to tackle these issues.
In the
discussion on the common platform, Phat So from the Department of the
Communicable Diseases Control of Cambodia's Ministry of Health said that a
common clinical test center is essential. He said, "In terms of
laboratories, Cambodia is limited compared with Thailand and other Asian
countries. I want the Asian [common] quality center to assist Cambodia so that
we can have quality equal to other Asian countries."
Tatsuya
Kondo, chief executive of Japan's Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency
and an expert in regulatory science, explained that his organization earlier
this month had established an Asia Training Center, to provide training
programs for regulation authority staff in Asian countries.
After the
presentations, the session moderator concluded that he felt closer partnerships
between countries and organizations are vitally important to share know-how
about infectious diseases in Asia.
This is
the third conference on this issue, following the first and second meetings
held on Japan's southern island of Okinawa in 2014 and 2015.
Kentaro
Iwamoto
No comments:
Post a Comment