DECISION ON THE REPORT OF THE FIFTH ORDINARY SESSION
OF THE AFRICAN UNION CONFERENCE OF MINISTERS OF HEALTH
Doc. EX.CL/662(XIX)
The Executive Council,
1. TAKES NOTE of the Report of the Fifth Session of the African Union Conference of Ministers of Health (CAMH5), held in Windhoek, Namibia, from 17 to 21 April 2011, and of the recommendations contained therein, as well as the Windhoek Declaration on Impact of Climate Change on Health and Development in Africa and Africa’s Common Position to the High-Level Meeting of the UN General Assembly Special Session on AIDS;
2. ENDORSES the recommendations of the Fifth Session of CAMH, in particular, the following:
(i) Member States should develop Emergency Preparedness Plans as a proactive measure and invest in interventions such as environmental impact assessments and early warning systems;
(ii) The need for Ministries of Health to strengthen their role in decision making on matters of national development - especially climate change;
(iii) The Continent should explore the adoption of available technologies to address some of its pressing challenges, including the use of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) to eradicate Malaria in Africa;
(iv) The need for WHO to update and share the Regional Disaster and Response Strategy, taking into account best practices of African countries that experienced disasters;
(v) The leadership of the Commission and Heads of State and Government was fundamental;
(vi) The Continent should explore the development of a central and well coordinated funding mechanism that is capable of responding to multiple challenges in an integrated manner;
(vii) Member States agreed to have a CARMMA week in November 2011;
(viii) Newborn death audits to be prioritized in addition to maternal death audits being done by Member States in order to strengthen operational research and input into program planning;
(ix) Promote the World Health Assembly decision on breastfeeding;
(x) Scale up on the provision of Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission on HIV (PMTCT) services as strategic services to improve maternal and child health status;
(xi) Explore and implement strategies to promote male involvement in CARMMA campaign and programmes to enhance maternal, newborn and child health status.
3. REQUESTS the Commission to facilitate implementation of the recommendations of CAMH5;
4. ACKNOWLEGES that the Bureau of CAMH5 and the Chairperson of the Commission duly transmitted Africa’s Common Position to the Co-Chairs and the Africa Group in New York during the recently concluded United Nations General Assembly High Level Meeting on HIV and AIDS; which effectively contributed to the adoption of the political Declaration on HIV and AIDS as well as the UN Resolution 1893 (2011) by the 6547th Security Council meeting of 7 June 2011;
5. WELCOMES the offer by the Republic of Algeria to host the Sixth Session of the CAMH in 2013;
6. REQUESTS the Commission to follow-up on the implementation of the outcomes of the Conference and report regularly to the Executive Council.