A meeting was held with Hande Harmanci, Head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Country Office in Azerbaijan, at the Ministry of Health.

Health Minister Teymur Musayev highlighted that our country attaches great importance to developing relations with the World Health Organization. According to him, during the last 30 years, crucial work has been done within the cooperation framework, and several regional projects have been successfully implemented.

Noting that strengthening primary health care is the foundation of universal medical care, the minister emphasized the importance of involving medical workers, especially nurses, in intensive training. For this purpose, at the initiative of the Ministry of Health, the WHO will establish a Simulation and Training Center in the city of Sumgait next year. The main goal of creating the Simulation Center is to develop the knowledge and skills of medical workers and simultaneously train local specialists.

Emphasizing that WHO experts have a vast experience in the field of public health, Teymur Musayev stressed the importance of implementing joint projects and the possibility of exchanging experience with specialists from the Azerbaijan Medical University and medical colleges under the Ministry of Health.

In turn, the head of the WHO office in Azerbaijan, Hande Harmanci, expressed hope for further successful development of cooperation. Hande Harmanci noted that essential efforts had been made in recent years in Azerbaijan to transform the healthcare system in the direction of strengthening it and achieving universal health coverage. Emphasizing Azerbaijan's long-term cooperation with the organization, Hande Harmanci expressed the readiness of the WHO to contribute in every possible way to strengthen primary healthcare.

Halil Ibrahim, a medical officer of the WHO office in our country, who participated in the meeting, noted that the "Azerbaijan Symposium on Strengthening Nursing and Midwifery", organized by the WHO in cooperation with the Ministry of Health and other health institutions of Azerbaijan, is taking place in Baku.

At the end of the meeting, the parties agreed on implementing new joint projects (improvement of health information systems; creation of a joint health emergency preparedness group; cooperation to strengthen primary healthcare; technical work to create a training and simulation center; etc.).