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For over 50 years the World Health Organization (WHO)
has contributed significantly to Thailand’s national health development and
capacity building particularly in the areas of communicable disease control,
eradication of smallpox, primary health care, development of human resources
for health, maternal and child health, and basic health services.
WHO was instrumental in
strengthening the planning capacity of the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) in formulating Thailand's national health
development plans during the decades of the 1970s and 1980s. Also during this period the Organization
supported innovative activities in primary health care and contributed toward
building institutional capacity in tropical diseases and human reproduction
research and training. WHO is also credited for having supported for over
four decades the development of Thailand's successful programmes in EPI, essential drugs and malaria control.
In recent years, WHO has made a
broad range of contributions, among them helping to plan and implement the
control of HIV/AIDS, the DOTS TB strategy, strengthen and support the Field
Epidemiological Training Programme (FETP) and the Asian Collaborative
Training Network for Malaria (ACT Malaria), the Healthy Cities programme, health systems reform, health promotion, and
research funding for the development of a dengue vaccine.
The WHO programme
devotes a considerable amount of its resources to agencies outside the
Ministry of Public Health. Examples
include creating awareness and prevention of HIV/AIDS and continuum of care
for people living with HIV/AIDS and access to basic health services through
the Social Security Scheme, promoting the healthy cities approach to
community-based organizations, and supporting technical cooperation among
countries. Non-Governmental organizations (NGOs) have been very effective in
tobacco control activities in Thailand and have been strong supporters
of WHO’s tobacco free initiative. The current health system reform movement
in Thailand
envisions strong civil society actors as building blocks of a national
healthy society.
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