The CARICOM Secretariat is committed to the time frame set by Heads of Government to establish clear guidelines for activities that would improve the health of the region's peoples and to implement them, CARICOM Secretary-General, Edwin Carrington, said.

Declaring open the Sixth Meeting of the Council for Human and Social Development (COHSOD) at Le Meridien Pegasus Hotel yesterday, Carrington said that the establishment of strategic plans and the implementation of programmes dealing with mental health and non-chronic diseases by December 2003 and December 2004 respectively, were some of the tasks of the Caribbean Cooperation in Health (CCH) coordinating mechanism. The CCH mechanism is the joint responsibility of the Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation (PAHO/WHO) and the CARICOM Secretariat.

The implementation of the Pan Caribbean Partnership Mechanism coordinated by CARICOM, he said had even more stringent target dates.

However, he said, even with the best political will and the most constructive strategic plan, in the final analysis achieving these regional targets depended on what happened at the national level.

Carrington's address dealt mainly with housekeeping matters and the media was not allowed to cover the ministerial panel discussions. The ministerial panel at the opening session was led by Health Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy and included Jamaica Minister of Health John Junor and CARICOM Assistant Secretary-General Edward Greene.

Carrington outlined two issues which he believed to be relevant to the discussions -- the central role of health in development and increasing productivity through health investment which required an inter-sectoral approach if it were to be sustainable.

He was sure that the panellists would deal with the transition in the region that had shifted the burden of policy concerns towards chronic illnesses, like heart disease and diabetes, as major causes of death compared with communicable diseases. And he was sure that the panellists were "concerned with the effects of HIV and AIDS as well as the re-emergence of malaria and [tuberculosis] in some countries and their effects on the labour force and on productivity."

He urged participants to give some attention to the importance of income inequality and poverty as determinants of health status, noting that the issue of food security on the agenda must highlight the lessons learnt from countries that have introduced effective policies to reduce malnutrition and diarrhoea especially among young children. He urged that they pay attention to the issue of the nutritional component of HIV and AIDS care and treatment programmes.

He said there was urgent need to search for interventions that produce the most impact on health in pockets of poverty. "How else can we scale up the response to HIV/AIDS and reduce its spread without collaboration among health practitioners, educators, sports administrators, youth and community leaders?"

He said he was glad to note that the agenda included items such as strategic inter-sectoral alliances with gender and youth, drug demand reduction, food security, crime, security and human development.

Apart from the focus on health and human development COHSOD will also honour Barbados-born Director of PAHO/WHO, Sir George Alleyne. Alleyne, a renowned Caribbean scholar and policymaker in the international arena particularly in health and development will demit office at the end of the year.

Other items on the agenda would be continued discussions on a regional strategy for negotiating with pharmaceutical companies for cheaper anti-retroviral drugs for people living with HIV/AIDS.

An open session at which stakeholders will focus on crime and security and human development is scheduled for today.

Other important issues, Greene had said at a press briefing to announce the holding of the meeting will be how member states were handling the free movement of skills, such as the issue of labour and migration of doctors and nurses, as the region moved towards the CARICOM Single Market and Economy.