The United States praises the Astana Declaration on PHC
The Minister of Health of Kazakhstan and the Minister of the United States discussed oncology, personalized medicine and artificial intelligence.
As part of a working trip to the United States, in Washington Yelzhan Birtanov , Minister of Health of the Republic of Kazakhstan met with Alex Azar, Secretary of the Department (Minister) of the US Health and Social Services . In addition, Admiral Bret Gyor, an Assistant Secretary (Vice-Minister) for Health also attended the meeting. It is important to note that Admiral Bret Gyoror participated in the Global Conference on Primary Health Care (PHC) in Astana, and also visited a number of health facilities.
During the meeting, issues of the state and prospects of bilateral cooperation in the field of health were discussed. In particular, Yelzhan Birtanov thanked the American side for joining the USA in the Group of Friends to promote the Astana Declaration on PHC.
In addition, the parties discussed the issue of organizing a parallel session “Kazakhstan and the United States” on primary health care during the high-level meeting on WHOEs at the UN General Assembly in September, this year.
Also raised questions about the work of the Disease Control and Prevention Center (CDC) and the Food Safety and Drug Administration Center (FDA). In this direction, Yelzhan Birtanov, Minister of Health informed his colleague about the reforms are currently underway in our country. In particular, plans to create a new Committee for the safety of goods and services quality control. The new structure will monitor the quality of various goods, including medicine and retail prices for them, and will also monitor the quality of medical services rendered to the population.
In turn, the US Head of Health shared his experience in ensuring food safety and medicine, conducting research on oncology among children, implementing the National Program for Personalized Medicine, and also spoke about the possibility of sharing experiences on these issues.
Another topic of the meeting was the issue of the work of the central reference laboratory in Almaty. In particular, a Minister informed his colleague about the work being done in this direction on the structure of the laboratory, in work of which the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Justice are also involved. In turn, the American side was offered to conduct specific research and development.
It is important to note that during the meeting, Admiral Bret Gyror, the Assistant Secretary (Vice-Minister) for Health, gave an example of the work of the Astana health facility (10th clinic) on approaches to protecting health care and implementing the productive work of primary health care. He stressed that he always demonstrates this example to his colleagues.
For reference:
Alex Azar in 1988 received a bachelor of arts in management and economics at Dartmouth College, graduated from Yale Law School.
In 2005-2007 he was Deputy Minister of Health and Social Services in the administration of George W. Bush.
In November 13, 2017, President Trump reported on his Twitter account of Alex Azar’s submission to the position of US Secretary of Health and Human Services. On January 24, 2018, Azar’s candidacy was approved by the Senate by 55 votes to 43, and on January 29 he took the oath and officially took office.