Delegation from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) visited SESRIC
Date: 22 February 2012
Venue: Ankara - Türkiye

A delegation from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Atlanta, USA, visited Dr. Savaş Alpay, Director General of SESRIC, in his office on 22 February 2012. The delegation comprised of Dr. Samira Asma, Chief of Global Tobacco Control, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Mr. William C. Parra, Chief Operating Officer of the Bloomberg Global Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, CDC Foundation and Dr. Toker Ergüder, National Tobacco Control Programme Officer, World Health Organization.

At the outset, Dr. Alpay, expressed his thanks to the delegates and briefed them on the activities of the Centre in the three areas of mandate: research, statistics and training. He stated that SESRIC has recently initiated a new programme in response to the spread of tobacco epidemic in the OIC Member Countries and stressed that Tobacco Free OIC Initiative aims to facilitate the development and implementation of sustainable national tobacco control strategies in the Member Countries through implementing training and capacity building programmes. Dr. Alpay also mentioned that SESRIC endeavours to enhance all sorts of cooperation and collaboration with all related national, regional and international institutions aiming at realising its objectives for the benefit of all Member Countries. In this regard, he expressed SESRIC’s readiness in improving mutual relationship with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the area of tobacco control strategies.

On her part, Dr. Asma, expressed her thanks to Dr. Alpay for his warm receiving of the delegation and informed him about the activities of CDC in the area of health, in particular in tobacco control strategies. She briefed the both delegations about Global Tobacco Surveillance System (GTSS) which aims to enhance country capacity to design, implement and evaluate tobacco control interventions, and monitor key articles of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and she also shared results of surveys which are implemented in some of the OIC Member Countries. She stated CDC’s eagerness to cooperate with the Centre in the field of tobacco control strategies through sharing experience, and exchanging training materials.