Prishtina, 29 September 2022
Successes and challenges in the health promotion and education area in Kosovo were highlighted by the Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, at the opening of the third Regional Conference on Health Promotion and Education.
In his remarks, Prime Minister Kurti, emphasizing that Kosovo has shown success in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, said that this success gives us an ideal opportunity to reflect on the importance of health promotion and education. He mentioned that a significant part of this success was precisely due to promotion and education efficiency.
Currently, one of the major challenges of health institutions in the promotion and education area is to find a way to repeat our success during the pandemic, in the fight against other diseases, the Prime Minister said before the participants of this two-day conference.
The major challenge in this direction is how to educate citizens to make the right changes in their daily lives today, and prevent serious chronic diseases that may evolve 10 or 20 years later, Prime Minister Kurti said. A successful solution to this problem would save hundreds of lives and have a huge positive impact on long-term public health, he underlined.
At the end of his speech, the Prime Minister said that the agenda of this conference organized by the National Institute of Public Health of Kosovo, in cooperation with the Kosovo Association for Health Promotion and Education “Healthy Environments”, and supported by the WHO Office in Prishtina, is extremely comprehensive and includes topics of high importance, both theoretically and practically.
Prime Minister Kurti’s full speech:
Honourable Minister of Health of the Republic of Kosovo, Dr. Rifat Latifi,
Honourable Director of the National Institute of Public Health of Kosovo, Prof. Nasser Ramadani,
Honourable Head of the UNICEF Office in Kosovo, Ms. Nona Zicherman,
Honourable First Secretary of the Embassy of the Swiss Confederation, Mr. Laurent Torche,
Honourable Vice-President of the Union for Health Promotion and Education for Europe, Mr. Paolo Contu,
Honourable Director of the Institute of Public Health of the Republic of North Macedonia, Dr. Shaban Memeti,
Honourable Representative of the World Health Organization Office, Dr. Isme Humolli,
Honourable Deputy Minister of Health, Ms. Dafina Gexha Bunjaku,
Ladies and gentlemen!
Dear participants,
For more than two years of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, almost every country in the world, including our Kosovo, has faced difficult consequences for the lives and health of citizens. However, official data, including statistics on what was called “excess deaths”, or additional deaths, show that Kosovo managed to keep the human costs to a minimum, especially compared to many other countries in the region, in Europe and worldwide.
Kosovo’s success in this regard gives us an ideal opportunity to reflect on the importance of health promotion and education. Because a significant part of this success was precisely due to promotion and education efficiency.
As with other diseases, health institutions have used two different types of interventions against COVID-19: pharmaceutical interventions and non-pharmaceutical interventions. The vaccine has been and keeps being the main pharmaceutical intervention. Whereas, non-pharmaceutical interventions have included measures that ensure sufficient physical distancing, as well as the wearing of masks in premises where physical distancing was impossible.
However, no intervention, whether pharmaceutical or non-pharmaceutical, would have been successful without relying on the intensive work of promotion and education. Vaccines cannot prevent serious illness among those who refuse to receive them. And masks cannot block the spread of the virus among those who refuse to wear them. Our country’s health workers are to be credited for having managed, by facts and arguments, to convince the vast majority of citizens of the necessity of such interventions.
Currently, one of the major challenges of health institutions in the promotion and education area is to find a way to repeat our success during the pandemic, in the fight against other diseases. Let us not forget that COVID-19 is an acute and contagious disease. These two characteristics planted a kind of fear among the citizens, which has made it a little easier to convince them to comply with the necessary measures. However, in the case of chronic and non-contagious diseases such as, for example, cancer, diabetes and heart disease, our work is significantly more difficult, but certainly no less vital. The major challenge in this direction is how to educate citizens to make the right changes in their daily lives today, avoid the need for difficult and expensive treatments tomorrow, and prevent serious chronic diseases that may evolve 10 or 20 years later. A successful solution to this problem would save hundreds of lives and have a huge positive impact on long-term public health. As the famous American scholar, Benjamin Franklin taught us, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. The one to one thousand ratio of prevention by cure.
Of course, this is only one of the issues that I hope you will address during your scientific discussions. The agenda of this two-day conference is extremely comprehensive and includes so many other topics of high importance, both theoretically and practically. Therefore, I wish you success and good luck during these next two days.
Thank you.
Last modified: September 29, 2022