GENEVA 26 June 2019: The head of World Health Organisation (WHO), has welcomed a prominent global award established by His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, praised the ‘Recognizing Excellence Around Champions of Health (Reach), Awards that honor frontline health workers and innovators who have demonstrated extraordinary leadership and commitment to eliminate global diseases.
Ghebreyesus tweeted on Tuesday: “#HealthWorkers are heroes working all over the world to eliminate diseases such as polio & achieve #HealthForAll. I welcome HH @MohamedBinZayed’s REACH Awards that will honour the very best of them. @WHO calls on all countries to invest in health workers!”
The call for nominations for this year’s Awards was announced last month during the World Health Assembly in Geneva. The Reach Awards will be presented during the ‘Reaching the Last Mile Forum’ on 19th November in Abu Dhabi, said Wam.
The biennial Awards gain relevance as more than one billion people around the world, especially in remote areas, lack access to healthcare and frontline health care workers play a critical role in reaching out to those people.
The UAE leadership’s dedication to disease elimination builds on the commitment of the late Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan, Founder of the UAE, and has since continued through a series of contributions from President His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who has personally committed US$250 million, since 2011, for global efforts to eliminate deadly and debilitating diseases.
