The World Health Organization (WHO) has revealed that it aims to improve the health of around 3 billion people by 2023, changing the future of public health.
This was revealed by Dr Mie Okamura, head of WHO’s Emergency Preparedness and Response Team, during the ‘Walk the Word’ peace awareness exercise in Abuja.
Okamura, who is also acting on behalf of WHO, explained that “walking the talk” is part of raising awareness and promoting exercise on non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
Those non-communicable diseases include heart disease, cancer, chronic respiratory disease and diabetes, Okamura noted.
Speaking further, Okamura said, “This is what we call walking the talk and doing it every week to raise awareness among people and communities to live healthier lives.
“It’s a way of showing people that we need to exercise and stay active, which is very important and necessary to lead a good healthy life.
“WHO has three goals, Universal Health Coverage (UHC), and we want 1 billion people to have access to UHC without financial hardship.
“The second goal is health emergency protection, which means 1 billion people will be better protected in health emergencies.
“The third is a healthier population, which means better health and wellbeing for a billion people.”
Okamura suggested that people should develop the habit of exercising, because this is the only way to stay healthy.
As the festival approaches, she appeals to Nigerians to exercise and eat healthy food.
Meanwhile, Dr Mary Stephen, WHO regional officer for Africa, said the organization had trained its staff to respond to health emergencies.
Stephen said Nigeria is prone to many emergencies, so to address such issues, the organization has built capacity and strengthened its staff to deal with any emergencies, as she revealed that some experts from various ministries and agencies were trained to deal with health emergencies.
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