Tag: WHO

JMEA signs Letter to WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus

As part of our collaborative actions with international ME advocacy organizations along with our participation in the global day for health equality for ME/CFS #MillionsMissing, Japan ME Association has co-signed an open letter to the WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus from the International Alliance for ME requesting a meeting to highlight the serious and significant impact of ME and to “explain why we are seeking urgent national and international action to increase research on [ME] and ease the suffering of patients around the world.”

We support this letter along with ME advocacy organizations from the UK, the United States, Australia, South Africa, Spain, and other countries in our sincere hope that the Director-General will accept the International Alliance’s invitation to speak with him to address the urgent situation facing ME patients worldwide at the WHO level. The full text of the letter can be found here.

JMEA to participate in #MillionsMissing at Geneva Event

On Saturday, May 12, 2018, Japan ME Association will participate in the global #MillionsMissing protest as part of the International Alliance for ME’s Visibility Event at Place Des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, the location of the World Health Organization (WHO).

#MillionsMissing is a global day of public action that calls for health equality for patients with ME. This year, Japan ME Association joins for the first time through its participation in the event in Geneva, where messages from Japanese ME patients will be displayed among those from many other countries. The International Alliance for ME is a joint international advocacy movement which aims to raise the profile and awareness of ME at the WHO level. The goal of the Alliance is to collaborate with organizations and individuals at the national and international levels to advocate for the adoption of a resolution by the WHO and its Member States recognizing ME as a “serious, chronic, complex and multisystem disease that frequently and dramatically limits the activities of affected patients (Institute of Medicine, 2015)” and to adopt measures to provide a global and coordinated public health response to ME.

JMEA believes that it is critically important to combine our efforts with ME advocacy organizations internationally to more effectively convey to the Japanese government the urgent need to improve the current public health response to ME. We firmly believe that advances at the WHO level and in other countries will positively influence the situation of ME patients in Japan and vice versa.