International News

Dili Declaration on Health

September 12 , 2026 7 hrs 0 min 41 0

The 79th Session of the WHO Regional Committee for South-East Asia (RC79) adopted the Dili Declaration on Human Resources for Health: Equity in Specialized Care in Dili, Timor-Leste.
The declaration focuses on reducing health workforce shortages and unequal distribution of specialists, especially in rural, remote and underserved areas.
Member States committed to better recruitment, deployment, retention and training of specialist health workers, along with stronger referral systems and telemedicine.
India’s medical colleges increased from 387 to 858 since 2014; MBBS seats rose from 51,348 to 1,42,464 and PG seats from 31,185 to 86,287.
India is establishing 157 new nursing colleges, creating about 15,700 nursing graduates annually, and plans to create 1 lakh allied and healthcare professionals over five years.
India received two WHO South-East Asia Regional awards for sustaining elimination of maternal and neonatal tetanus and for leadership in controlling noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) through primary healthcare.