Deputy Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Dr Wilfrido V Villacorta Thursday appraised China's support for ASEAN's health programs.

Wilfrido made the remarks when meeting with the press at the end of the First ASEAN-China Health Ministers Meeting, which was preceded by the 8th ASEAN Health Ministers Meeting and the Second ASEAN+3 (China, Japan and South Korea) Health Ministers Meeting.

"We ASEAN welcome very much the first ASEAN-China health ministers meeting. We are very happy about this and all member countries which are representing here share too," Wilfrido said.

Describing China as one of ASEAN's more active dialogue partners, he cited a number of projects sponsored by China between 2002 and 2005, which covered those of HIV/AIDS, SARS and avian influenza prevention and control as well as communicable diseases surveillance.

He added that China is also sharing the latest technology as well as traditional technology with ASEAN countries.

Aimed at pushing ahead the cooperative ties between ASEAN and China in the sector of health, the ASEAN-China health ministers meeting was held on Thursday with discussions covering issues of HIV/AIDS prevention and control, avian influenza and other emerging infectious diseases (EID), traditional medicine and operationalization of the ASEAN-China Public Health Fund.

China expressed willingness to strengthen cooperation and actively develop effective and pragmatic cooperative programs in the areas.

As the ASEAN-China public fund stands one of the five new priorities for ASEAN-China cooperation identified by the leaders during the 9th ASEAN-China Summit held in Kuala Lumpur in December 2005, China said it would like to use the ASEAN-China Public Health Fund to strengthen cooperation with ASEAN countries on public health and finance programs to be held in the region, while welcoming proposals from the ASEAN side and giving positive consideration to fund them.

China made three suggestions on establishing ASEAN-China epidemic prevention and control mechanism, enhancing capacity building and setting up and improving information exchange.

The ASEAN-China health ministers set their next meeting to be held in the Philippines in 2008.

The first ASEAN-China health ministers meeting took place following the Eight ASEAN Health Ministers Meeting on Wednesday and the Second ASEAN+3 (China, Japan and South Korea) health ministers meeting earlier on Thursday.

ASEAN groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Source: Xinhua