1 Photo book maldives design Final.indd 1 27/09/17 00:57 Photo book maldives design Final.indd 2 27/09/17 00:57 Photo book maldives design Final.indd 3 27/09/17 00:57 Maldives: A Journey of Health ISBN 978-92-9022-611-6 © World Health Organization 2017 Some rights reserved. This work is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO licence (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 IGO; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/igo). Under the terms of this licence, you may copy, redistribute and adapt the work for non-commercial purposes, provided the work is appropriately cited, as indicated below. In any use of this work, there should be no suggestion that WHO endorses any specific organization, products or services. The use of the WHO logo is not permitted. If you adapt the work, then you must license your work under the same or equivalent Creative Commons licence. 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Photo book maldives design Final.indd 4 27/09/17 00:57 MALDIVES: A JOURNEY OF HEALTH Photo book maldives design Final.indd 5 27/09/17 00:57 CONTENTS MALDIVES: A JOURNEY OF HEALTH 5 MESSAGE FROM THE MINISTER OF HEALTH, MALDIVES 7 REGIONAL DIRECTOR'S MESSAGE 8 WHO COUNTRY REPRESENTATIVE’S MESSAGE 9 THE BEGINNING 10 Early Days 12 Initial Challenges 14 FIRST STEPS 16 Prioritising Healthcare 18 Partners in Change 20 Dedicated Workforce 21 THE BREAKTHROUGHS 22 Trailblazing Achievements in Maternal and Child Health 24 Working at Preventive Measures 26 Vaccines for Victory over Diseases 28 Zeroing Down on Malaria 30 Leprosy no longer a Scourge 32 Freedom from Filariasis 35 Measles: A Killer Nailed 36 ON COURSE 38 Enemies to Eliminate Now 40 Kick the Habit – Non Communicable Diseases 42 Resilient Healthcare Systems for All 44 Preserving What Matters the Most 46 Ready to Respond 48 Reaching Out to the Community 50 TOMORROW AND BEYOND 52 Targeting Sustainable Development Goals 54 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 56 Photo book maldives design Final.indd 6 27/09/17 00:57 Message from the Minister of Health, Maldives I am proud and pleased to see this Publication that I take this opportunity to express my appreciation for captures a little slice of our life here in The Maldives. the generous and continued support of the country Our lives have been fraught with unique challenges and regional offices of World Health Organization – that our geography presents us with. But it has an unprecedented collaboration right from the start. been a journey teeming with stories of victories and This has been evidenced especially over these last achievements over the Years. This is a story about few years where several key milestones are achieved my Islands, my Country and my People and most of and much progress has been made in our results- all; this is about our Health and our World. oriented partnership. This Journey of Health has been made possible by I would like to congratulate WHO Country Office all the stakeholders, individuals and contributors for highlighting the collaboration and achievements from different sectors who collaborated with us in through an innovative approach of photobook. I look addressing our health concerns. Their hard work, forward to our continued partnership for a happier, dedication, and enthusiasm are noteworthy and it healthier and secure future for our people. has been encouraging to see such multi-sectoral support. The people who most deserve our gratitude through this continuing journey have been our health Workforce and our Communities. Their tireless quest for safe and healthy lives overwhelms me. Abdulla Nazim Ibrahim Minister of Health As a Nation, we must continue to address the challenges that lie ahead for us while remaining committed to sustaining gains such as maintaining disease free status and as we strive together as a Nation for excellence in health. 7 Photo book maldives design Final.indd 7 27/09/17 00:58 Regional Director's Message A good story is always worth telling. The Journey of The story continues, with Maldives showing leadership Health embarked upon and shared by the Ministry in areas of pressing concern. In response to the health of Health, Republic of Maldives, and World Health impacts of climate change, for example, it is building Organization is one such example. a more climate-resilient health system via the Low Emission Climate Resilient development project. And in Our collaboration began in the late 1950s, when WHO response to rising rates of noncommunicable diseases, visited the country as part of a blood-sampling mission Maldives is implementing a series of innovative for filarial parasites. It grew closer in 1965, when a measures aimed at changing consumer habits, WHO Country Office opened in Malé, the country’s including increased taxation of tobacco and sugary capital. And it continued to advance as Maldives’ energy and soft drinks. development trajectory took flight, and as the Ministry of Health forged dramatic public health gains. Now as always, WHO – and with it the Regional Office for South-East Asia – is proud to be a part of Maldives’ Between 1977 and the present, for example, life Journey of Health, which is ably captured in the expectancy increased by more than two-thirds, going following pages. The Seventieth Regional Committee, from 47 years to more than 75. Maternal mortality which Maldives is hosting, is indeed an opportune decreased from 677 per 100,000 live births in 1990 time to celebrate Maldives’ remarkable public health to 41 per 100,000 live births in 2014. Since launching achievements, and the institutional and collaborative its Expanded Programme on Immunisation in 1976, relationships that made them possible. Maldives has recorded some of the highest coverage rates in the South-East Asia Region, with more than Long may Maldives’ Journey of Health – and the story it 99% of all people now reached. writes – continue. Maldives continues to be a leader, both regionally and globally. In 2015 Maldives became the first country globally to be certified malaria-free in the SDG era. In 2016 it became one of two countries in the Region to eliminate lymphatic filariasis as a public health problem. Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh Just this year, Maldives was certified to have eliminated Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia Region measles three years ahead of the Region’s 2020 target. 8 Photo book maldives design Final.indd 8 27/09/17 00:58 WHO Country Representative’s Message Remarkable tales of human achievement and This photobook is published within this context and community participation can be told about the captures some success stories and landmarks of the enchanting island Nation of The Maldives. Comprising health development evolution in the Maldives and is more water than land mass, the people have created an attempt to showcase the journey of health through a robust life and affluent communities that are happy, glimpses of historical information, collaborative healthy and engaged. efforts and important milestones of partnerships in health. This is not a technical document, but more Sharing a long history of working together to of a collection of information on the joint activities promote and protect health and prevent the between WHO, at all three levels of the organization, people from disease and disability, the partnership and the Government, mainly represented by the between WHO and the Ministry of Health has led Ministry of Health.