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Summary: The Beirut Declaration for Woman and Child Health Rights, promoting health across the region, was launched Thursday at the 35th Round of the Arab Health Ministers Council. [BEIRUT, 11 March 2011] - The Beirut Declaration is the first regional declaration affirming the importance of promoting female and child health and calls on Arab states to adopt specific protocols to improve medical access for women and children and decrease child mortality rates. The initiative was sponsored by First Lady Wafaa Sleiman. Caretaker State Minister Mona Ofeish, MP Michel Musa, Gen. Jean Kahwaji, and caretaker Defense Minister Elias Murr attended the launch, alongside various representatives from Arab delegations. Caretaker Health Minister Mohammad Jawad Khalifeh, who chaired this year’s Arab Health Ministers Council, stressed women’s right to good health. “Our health care programmess’ first priority in combating disease and carrying out immunisation campaigns is women’s health,” he said. Khalifeh discussed the importance of the protocols, which include implementing the national immunisation system that currently allows Lebanon to enjoy an immunisation coverage rate of over 96 per cent. The protocols also include provisions on monitoring the health of children and teenagers, with health programs being incorporated in schools to monitor students’ physical and mental growth, he added. The declaration additionally stresses the need to monitor children’s reproductive growth, especially in females to ensure safe pregnancy, while also insisting on the importance of monitoring women and children’s mental health by examining them for physical abuse. Other protocols specify the need to test unmarried women for diseases such as HIV, and Hepatitis B. While most of these are statements of intent, some protocol provisions, such as the monitoring of neonatal care, are already being implemented in Lebanon. “The Health Ministry has been working for months to implement a national health care programme for pregnant women, offering them medical services for low prices,” Khalifeh said. “The programme is currently being implemented in its initial stage in remote areas in the north passing through the Bekaa and reaching the south.” Sleiman praised the growing awareness on these issues, linking them to general indicators for societal development. “Health care is the most sacred duty of a state toward its people,” said Sleiman.
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