Health ministers to meet on food crisis

Health ministers from 10 southern African countries and senior officials of the World Health Organisation (WHO) are to meet next week in Harare, Zimbabwe, to examine responses to the region's humanitarian crisis. "The meeting will explore ways to intensify and accelerate the response of health systems to the current situation in the region through containment of potential increase in disease burdens, and helping to prevent loss of life. It will also identify core priority interventions and agree ways to strengthen coordination and support mechanisms," a WHO statement released on Monday said. Nearly 14 million people, including 2.3 million children under the age of five, are at risk in Southern Africa. Without effective action to enable the most vulnerable to survive, at least 300,000 could die from hunger and disease in the next six months, WHO warned. Health ministers of Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe are slated to attend the 26-28 August meeting. Senior WHO officials expected in Harare include WHO Director General, Dr Gro Harlem Brundland, the WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Ebrahim Samba, and the Director of Programme Management at the WHO Regional Office for Africa, Dr Luis Sambo. Representatives of humanitarian organisations have also been invited. "We are concerned that many deaths that occur during emergencies like the current one are due not only to starvation but also to disease; undernutrition makes people more susceptible to disease and existing health services are often unable to take on the added burden," Samba said in the WHO statement. "It is imperative for governments and their development partners to maintain or even increase public investment in health services during emergencies, including investment in nutrition, childcare, sanitation and clean water," he added. Southern Africa's food crisis is a result of a combination of floods and droughts across the region. According to UN agencies, it has also been aggravated by government policies, increased poverty, and a high prevalence of HIV/AIDS.