Prof. Dr. Recep Akdağ, Minister of Health of Turkey and Dr. Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO Regional Director for Europe, signed "2016-2017 Two-Year Cooperation Agreement" between Ministry of Health of the Republic of Turkey and WHO Europe Regional Office.
Since the beginning of the Health Transformation Program, life expectancy in Turkey have showed an increase while mother, infant and child mortality decreased drastically.
The gap between health status of Turkish citizens and average health indicators of WHO European Region diminishing and in some cases it surpassed the average health indicators.
However, non-communicable diseases have recently been one of the main problems faced in the field of health.
Main priority for non-communicable diseases are risk factors related to nutrition. For this reason, over-weight, obesity and salt usage which are above the average of WHO European Region are the main risk factors.
Turkey gained great success in fight against tobacco in short time. To reinforce the results obtained, additional studies are carried out in all levels. New policies and programs are developed to handle public health including mental health.
In consideration of the Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 of United Nations, Turkey shows determination to accelerate the implementation of National Action Plan for Road Safety.
The contribution to global health that Turkey has given through cooperation and development support is very important and increases year by year. Within the scope of this aim, Turkey and WHO Europe Office continue the negotiation to establish a Separate Geographic Office that will conduct studies in preparedness for humanitarian emergency, health emergency in Istanbul.
Besides, Turkey which host millions of refugees is the country that have the biggest number of refugees in the world. In cooperation with other shareholders, World Health Organization and Ministry of Health of Turkey work on innovative solutions in order to maximize the access of Syrian refugees to basic health services including vaccination and mental health services in order to increase the capacity of intervention in this scope.
With the agreement, the framework of cooperation in these fields between WHO and Turkey
