REMARKS by the Prime Minister, Hon. Fiame Naomi Mata’afa, at the dinner hosted by the WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific, Dr Saia Ma’u Piukala

Tuesday 16 April 2024, Orator Hotel

___________________________________________________________

E manatu e le toe vāea le pa'ia o fala 'o'oto, auā sā ma faigata ua afifio nei. Tau ia ina ou fa'apoipoi lili'a ile pa'ia ma le mamalu ua aofaga ae o le a talanoa atu i le gagana e malamalama i ai le toatele ole valaaulia.

• Honourable Members of Cabinet

• Honourable Members of Parliament

• Dr Saia Ma'u Piukala, WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific

• Distinguished members of the Diplomatic Corps,

• Heads of regional and international organisations

• Pacific Heads of Health

• Ladies and Gentlemen,

Talofa Lava and a pleasant good evening to you all.

It is indeed a pleasure for me to join you all at the reception this evening.

I would like to thank Dr Piukala, for your kind invitation to join you and all our partners here tonight. Allow me to congratulate you again on your recent appointment as the WHO Regional Director for the Western Pacific. As the first Pacific Islander at the helm of the WHO in the Western Pacific, I am confident that your experience as a former Minister of Health and work experience in other Pacific countries will serve you in good stead to lead and deliver on the WHO vision and priorities.

We are pleased that you have included Samoa in your visit as part of your roadmap for the first 100 days in office. It is also our hope that you are able to visit many of the 37 countries and areas in the Western Pacific Region to also see their realities.

In July 2023, we celebrated the WHO's 75th Anniversary with Dr Kim Dickson and representatives from Ministries of Health in American Samoa, Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau who were on our island for the WHO's first inter-country meeting.

I reflected then on WHO's Global leadership and legacy including the eradication of smallpox and the near eradication of Polio. I am pleased to note that the Western Pacific has been Polio-free since 2000. These were enormous challenges back then, and as we have seen in recent times; health challenges have no boundaries.

The re-emergence of neglected tropical diseases that thrive in hard-to-reach places and populations with scarce access to clean water and sanitation, which are only exacerbated by climate change, will continue to challenge us in this region.

Dr Piukala, during our meeting yesterday you had indicated your three priorities which are: integrated health systems development; climate change; and health security. These are indeed among Samoa's priorities and those of the Pacific region.

We have heeded your warning of the threat of the re-emergence of measles in this region and the guidance WHO has provided to meet this challenge. The Government of Samoa and the WHO Samoa Office has worked in partnership to support the steady increase in immunization coverage, including for measles. We have now increased the second-dose immunization coverage for a measles-containing vaccine to 76%, up from 45% in 2023. The Ministry of Health have teams vaccinate on Saturdays for the last three months to reach families in the north-west of Upolu where vaccination coverage was lower than other parts of the country and we will continue to do more to improve these percentages.

We are also addressing health security as we have already started to take action on the recommendations from the Joint External Evaluation of our COVID-19 and pandemic response preparedness.

These recent areas of collaboration between the WHO and the Ministry of Health reflects your very eloquent analogy of our beautiful Pacific tradition of weaving mats and how we should work together to progress the health of our people.

As you chart your next 100 days and beyond, I wish you and the WHO; continued success and assure you that Samoa will continue to weave our 'health mat' with you.

To conclude, I wish all the Pacific Heads of Health and their delegations a fruitful meeting as you continue your craftsmanship of weaving and collaborating to forge improved health in our region.

Ia soifua ma ia manuia.

[Link] April 18, 2024

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.