WHO’s Saima Wazed Urges Better Health Systems for Adolescents in Southeast Asia
Kathmandu, Nepal – The World Health Organisation (WHO) has called on countries in the Southeast Asia Region to make their health systems more responsive to the unique needs of adolescents. This call was made by Saima Wazed, the Regional Director for WHO South-East Asia, during a three-day meeting focused on achieving universal health coverage for adolescents.
The Importance of Adolescence
Adolescence, which spans from 10 to 19 years of age, is a critical period of development. Saima Wazed emphasized that adolescents require special attention in national health and development policies due to their unique cognitive, social, physical, emotional, and sexual development needs.
Triple Dividend Benefit
Investing in adolescent health offers a ‘triple dividend’ benefit:
- Immediate Benefit: Promotes positive health behaviors and early detection and treatment of health issues.
- Future Benefit: Encourages healthy lifestyles, reducing harmful behaviors and diseases in adulthood.
- Intergenerational Benefit: Promotes healthy practices that prevent diseases in future generations.
Wazed highlighted that for every dollar invested in adolescent health, there is an estimated 5-10 times return in health, social, and economic benefits.
Challenges and Barriers
Despite the benefits, nearly 670 adolescents die daily in the WHO South-East Asia Region due to various health issues, many of which are preventable or treatable. Adolescents face multiple barriers in accessing healthcare, which were worsened during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Wazed noted that while there have been significant advances in prioritizing adolescent health, challenges such as funding, lack of accountability, fragmented implementation, and poor data quality persist.
Need for Adolescent-Centric Health Systems
Wazed stressed that health systems need to be more adolescent-centric. Current systems are primarily designed for other age groups and focus on disease management rather than comprehensive adolescent health services. She called for the inclusion of adolescents’ and their families’ views in designing these services to ensure they are high-quality, inclusive, and accessible.
WHO’s Commitment
Wazed reiterated WHO’s commitment to investing in the health of women, girls, adolescents, and vulnerable populations. This is part of WHO’s strategy for a healthier, more equitable, and sustainable Southeast Asia Region.
Doubts Revealed
WHO -: WHO stands for the World Health Organisation. It is a special agency of the United Nations that works to improve health all around the world.
Saima Wazed -: Saima Wazed is a leader who works with the WHO. She helps make decisions to improve health in Southeast Asia.
Adolescents -: Adolescents are young people who are in their teenage years, usually between 10 and 19 years old.
Southeast Asia -: Southeast Asia is a region in Asia that includes countries like India, Thailand, and Indonesia.
Triple dividend -: Triple dividend means three types of benefits. In this case, it refers to benefits for adolescents now, in the future, and for their future children.
Funding -: Funding means money that is provided for a specific purpose, like improving health systems.
Data quality -: Data quality refers to how accurate and reliable information is. Good data helps make better decisions.
Adolescent-centric -: Adolescent-centric means focusing on the needs and well-being of teenagers.
Vulnerable populations -: Vulnerable populations are groups of people who are more likely to face health problems, like poor people or those without access to good healthcare.
