HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Speaks on Global Health Challenges and Meets with Japanese Officials on Pandemic Influenza Preparedness

August 1, 2006 - Tokyo, Japan The Honorable John Agwunobi, M.D., Assistant Secretary for Health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), visited Tokyo in late July 2006, to highlight the ever-stronger collaborations between the United States and Japan on preparedness for outbreaks of infectious diseases and natural and man-made disasters. Assistant Secretary for Health Agwunobi is an Admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps.

On July 24, 2006, ADM Agwunobi met with the Honorable Jiro Kawasaki, Minister for Health, Labor and Welfare and the Honorable Hiroshi Okada, the Parlimentary Secretary at the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, to express appreciation for the many years of partnership between our two countries and for Japan's many contributions to global health efforts, including participation in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, the Global Health Security Initiative (GHSI), and global polio-eradication efforts.

On July 25, 2006, ADM Agwunobi spoke to leading academics, researchers, national and local Government officials, policy experts, and the media on the "U.S. Approach to Global Health Challenges: Confronting Pandemics, Bio-and Natural Disasters," at the Tokyo American Center (TAC) in the U.S. Embassy. He spoke of the way HHS policy-makers have learned to adjust their organizations to keep pace with threats. ADM Agwunobi also spoke directly to the public in an appearance on NHK, a Japanese public television station.

ADM Agwunobi's key message was the importance of strengthening the world's capacity for responding together to important health threats such as a spread of a highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza or a pandemic influenza. ADM Agwunobi shared his experience as Florida 's Secretary of Health and State Health Officer in addressing the anthrax attacks of 2001 and the four major hurricanes that hit the State in 2004. In his view, all countries need to be prepared for the unthinkable, and that it is essential to involve individuals and individual households, national Governments and multilateral institutions in public-health emergencies.

The United States and Japan have a long history of important health agreements and a record of significant achievements. Since 1965, the HHS National Institutes of Health (NIH) has participated in the U.S.-Japan Cooperative Medical Sciences Program with the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, which involves hundreds of U.S. and Japanese scientists. At any one time, there are more than 300 visiting Japanese scientists who are participating in research in the HHS/NIH intramural laboratories. Since 1999, the HHS Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has collaborated with the Japanese Ministry of Health to strengthen infectious-disease surveillance and outbreak response by establishing a Japanese Field Epidemiology Training Program. The HHS Food and Drug Administration (FDA) works closely with Japan on a number of bilateral regulatory and multilateral harmonization issues.

When President Bush launched the International Partnership on Avian and Pandemic Influenza in Sept 2005, Japan was a founding member. Among other important U.S.-Japan partnerships are the U.S.-Japan Common Agenda, a bilateral partnership to address global challenges such as that of global health, overpopulation, environmental degradation, and reducing damage from natural disasters such as tsunamis in Southeast Asia.

Last revised: November 20, 2007