Opening statement by Minister of Health Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang at the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Trilateral Meeting in New Delhi, India

29 July 2008

My colleagues, Honourable Ministers of India, Dr Anbumani Ramadoss and Mr Jose Gomes Temporao of Brazil and officials from both countries, let me say how delighted I am that we are meeting as the three India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) health ministers after such a long time, and express my sincere wish that this will not be the last. Our principals expect us to be better prepared for the IBSA Summit to be held here in Delhi in October this year.

I think I must express my gratitude to Minister Ramadoss for convening and hosting us and I am particularly grateful because after meeting with him at the World Health Assembly in May this year, I requested you Minister to make sure that the IBSA Health Ministers meeting is convened, and you have moved positively and very rapidly too. Thank you, Minister Jose Gomes Temporao for also responding timeously and positively to the invitation to attend.

Let me right away commend Minister Ramadoss for his achievements in public health, happily it seems his vision and mine on public health coincide - tobacco control has been my passion even long before I became a Minister of Health. Just as a doctor seeing the damage smoking was doing to our people especially the young people and lately women, I have always felt that something needed to be done about it, and therefore as soon as I became the Minister of Health in 1999 anti-smoking became my flagship programme. This is how I was awarded Luther L Terry Award from the American Cancer Society way back in 2000. Dr Ramadoss, you received yours in 2006. Congratulations for that.

Our Legislation in Tobacco Control is quoted as the most progressive ever to the extent that countries like Sweden have asked to model their policies and legislation on ours. Currently, the Framework Convention and Tobacco Control (FCTC) Bureau has nominated a South African Professor Harry Seftel to be given the award at the COP3 for his contribution to public health through his activism against smoking.

While on this point, let me take the opportunity to personally invite you, my colleagues, to the FCTC Conference of Parties (COP) 3 meeting to be held in South Africa on 17 to 21 November 2008. I have discussed the matter of invitees to the meeting with Dr Haik Nikogosian, the chair of the Conference of Parties Secretariat at World Health Organisation (WHO) and we have both agreed that it would be most desirable to have as many Health Ministers as possible come to this meeting and particularly yourselves and Mexico, where we are getting to a state where serious political issues have to be resolved. The WHO Africa region will issue a joint statement within the context of the African Union (AU) health strategy.

We view tobacco control in the broader context of Healthy Lifestyles movement and linked to this are the issues of physical activity, healthy diet, no use of drugs and responsible use of alcohol. In this context, as from January next year, we shall as a country label all alcohol containers with health warnings. Here I have to mention that we have been honoured to partner with Dr Victor Matsudo of Brazil who actually spearheaded the physical activity, diet and health movement under the slogan Agita Mundo-Move-for-Your-Health. Our programme which was officially launched in 2005, and Dr Matsudo participated at this launch, has taken on like wild fire, both young people and the elderly especially the women are the major drivers of this programme. We would wish to see simple, but highly effective programmes such as this one, become a trade mark of IBSA, in our effort to promote good health and prevent diseases, especially non-communicable diseases, traumas and accidents.

It is also gratifying to see that Minister Ramadoss has been in the forefront of poverty alleviation and rural health improvement. To me, unless there are concrete efforts to deal with poverty in our communities, little will be achieved by efforts to improve health. It also one of my wishes for IBSA to drive the move to recognise and deal with the social determinants of health, and in this context, I would wish to have all of us benefit from Minister Ramadoss' experience in the National Rural Health Mission. In South Africa, we have just begun to pay special attention to this aspect of healthcare, and in that regard, we have produced our draft rural health strategy which will be published for public comment soon.

Coming to issues that were already in our IBSA agreement, I may mention that there has been some ground covered in the area of traditional medicine in my country where we are now at a stage where we have published our policy for public comment. The African traditional Health Professions Council should be established before the end of this year. We would at this juncture, like to express our gratitude for the assistance we received from the Institute of Traditional Medicine of India in this area, as India has centuries-long tradition of traditional medicine. We also have published regulations on complementary medicine for public comment.

Pharmaceuticals are potentially the biggest issue for IBSA, both politically and economically. Here, I would like to commend and thank Brazil's steadfast and resilient approach to the management of intellectual property rights through the use of legislation to enable compulsory licensing and resistance to the TRIPS-PLUS agenda. This is an IBSA agenda issue that must be pursued to improve access to effective, appropriate and affordable pharmaceuticals and related technologies.

Brazil is a leader in this area and therefore as stipulated in the IBSA agreement, we should as IBSA benefit from Brazil's guidance in navigating through the Global Strategy and the Plan of Action on Intellectual Property, Innovation and public health as articulated by the WHO. It will therefore be very important for us as IBSA partners to move together cooperatively at all international forums on this matters, if we are to make any headway in our battles to protect innovation and knowledge from our countries and continents, which are usually vulnerable to exploitation.

This matter will be on the agenda of the WHO regional committee meeting in Cameroon next month. This is particularly suitable for me, as it is also an agenda item for the African Union (AU) as articulated in the AU African Health Strategy. As chair of AU Bureau, I will personally make sure that this matter is dealt with as a large number of African countries stand to benefit immensely from any positive outcomes of this agenda items.

Regrettably, with regard to research, public health laboratories and health surveillance, not much work has been done and we look forward to the review as reflected in the programme. I propose that issues on Registration of Medicines and Drugs, including counterfeit medical products be dealt with separately during the bilateral meeting between us and India. We might want though to discuss the co-operation between the IMCR - MRC - Fiocruz as a trilateral arrangement. I would also like to raise the issue of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). My direct proposal is that IBSA should convene a conference to review our progress in the achievement of the MDGs, so we can share lessons and therefore be better equipped to improve on our shortfalls. This, I believe will be one of the most effective strategies to accelerate our progress in this area and I am prepared to host that conference in January 2009, if this is acceptable to the Honourable Ministers.

Finally, as a major outcome of this meeting, chair, I would like to propose that we agree on a work programme between now and October when the IBSA Summit will take place. I am aware that in September, the sub-groups have to meet to prepare for the Summit, and I would hope that by then there will be something concrete to meet about, and that can form a basis for our participation during the Summit.

Colleagues, once again let me thank everybody and hope that this time we will be able to take this co-operation off the ground. In this context, I propose that we instruct our officials to produce a draft Plan of Action and compile a record of our proceedings, which I hope we can sign before our departure from New Delhi.

Issued by: Department of Health
29 July 2008
Source: Department of Health (http://www.doh.gov.za/)

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