Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Associated Press - September 13, 1999
"Health workers aiding in a crisis situation should not be targets of military action," Dr. Gro Harlem Brundtland, Director-General of the World Health Organization, told a news conference Wednesday before leaving Dhaka after a four-day visit to attend a meeting of WHO regional committee for South-East Asia.
Dr. Brundtland made the appeal after anti-independence militias in East Timor forced health officials of the International Red Cross and other UN agencies out of their offices at gunpoint and burned down a hospital. East Timor, a former Portuguese colony annexed by Indonesia in 1975, overwhelmingly voted for independence in a UN-sponsored referendum on August 30.
Dr. Brundtland said countries must invest in health to fight poverty. "Health is key to progress and development and governments must spend enough resources on health to ensure basic health services to all," Dr. Brundtland said.
In Bangladesh's case, Dr. Grundtland said, the country needed to increase efforts to tackle maternal mortality and communicable diseases like tuberculosis and malaria. The country should also step up surveillance of cases of polio - a disease that is almost eradicated - and AIDS, which is yet to reach epidemic form in Bangladesh.
"Eradication of polio from Bangladesh is crucial to global success," Dr Brundtland said. "HIV is at danger level here and by talking about it, we can prevent an epidemic."
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