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Symposium calls for more health funding

30 April 2008

Keynote speaker Professor David Karoly (far right) with Monash medical students Hiep Pham and Zoe Steward at the World Health Day Symposium.

Organisers of the World Health Day Symposium have called for an expansion to the Australian Government's funding to support basic health systems in developing countries.

In a joint statement released by Symposium organisers and World Vision, the government was urged to almost double its aid funding to significantly reduce child and maternal mortality and turn around major infectious diseases like HIV, AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

More than 200 people attended the Symposium at Coppin Hall in Melbourne.

The event, which was hosted by Monash's new school of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, the Burnet Institute and the Alfred Medical Research and Education Precinct (AMREP), brought together students, academics, health practitioners, researchers and policy makers from Australia, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Fiji, New Zealand, India and South Africa, providing them with the opportunity to share views and ideas on global health.

Chair of International Public Health at Monash Professor Brian Oldenburg said: "It is particularly important in this rapidly changing world that research can better inform health policy making and delivery of health services especially in low and middle income countries."

Symposium participants heard from 11 speakers including Professor David Karoly, a renowned climate scientist on the theme for this year's World Health Day, Protecting Health from Climate Change.

For more information visit the AMREP website.