Doha, Qatar: The Ministry of Public Health, in cooperation with the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, recently organized a three-day workshop entitled "Self-Assessment Phase of the Joint External Evaluation of the International Health Regulations 2005", at Itqan Clinical Simulation and Innovation Center at Hamad Bin Khalifa Medical City.
The workshop was attended by 138 specialists from the Ministry of Public Health and relevant ministries in State, Hamad Medical Corporation and Primary Health Care in the fields of surveillance and response to communicable diseases, vaccinations, laboratories, pharmacy, logistics, infection control and antimicrobial resistance, risk communication, planning, financing, human resources, emergency preparedness and response, as well as participants from areas related to food safety, animal health, environmental health, and port health, chemical and radiological emergencies and security.
Speaking at the opening of the workshop, Dr. Soha Al-Bayat - Director of Health emergency preparedness at the Ministry of Public Health, said: "The joint external evaluation is part of the 2005 international health regulations’ monitoring and evaluation framework and is a multisectoral voluntary process to assess the country's capacity to prevent, monitor and respond quickly to public health risks.
She explained that the joint external evaluation process allows countries to identify the most sought-after needs and opportunities within the health security system to strengthen emergency preparedness, monitoring and response, through consensus of views on national priorities, in order to develop and update the National Action Plan for Health Security with the allocation of the required resources.
Dr. Soha Al Bayat added, "The State of Qatar, like other countries in the world, has faced many challenges during the previous years, especially with the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and through the successful organizing of 2022 World Cup, pointing out that Qatar, like other countries, constantly needs to provide initiatives and best practices to ensure effective preparedness and management of any type of emergency that may occur, and commitment to the process of continuous development of capabilities and competencies in order to optimize emergency preparedness and raise the capacity of systems to withstand and respond to and recover from any type of emergency or major accident".
The purpose of the International Health Regulations (2005) is to prevent, protect, control, and respond to the international spread of disease by taking public health measures in a manner commensurate with the potential risks.
