Kuwait honors 2 foreign doctors

GENEVA (KUNA): The State of Kuwait awarded its Prize for Research in Health Promotion jointly to Dr Zaza Metreveli from Georgia and Dr Chuon Chantopheas from Cambodia, who received $20,000 each. Dr Zaza Metreveli is the Chief of the Department of Anesthesiology, Intensive Care and Critical Care Medicine at the Gudushauri National Medical Centre in Tbilisi, Georgia. During national emergency and conflict, especially during the war in the 1990s, he made a significant contribution to national welfare and has received recognition and awards from the Georgian government. When asked what he will use the prize money for, Dr Metreveli said, “I wish to channel some of the money towards a trauma prevention program.” Dr Chuon Chantopheas is the Deputy Head of the Technical Bureau of the National Laboratory for Drug and Food Quality Control at the Ministry of Health of Cambodia. She has played a leading role in raising awareness about food-borne diseases, a major cause of ill-health in her country. She has been recognized as an expert in this field, both nationally, and by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAC) and the World Health Organization (WHO), and is regularly invited to address international meetings and public forums on food-borne disease.

Upon receiving the award, Dr Chantopheas said, “It may come as a surprise, but I would like to get an Internet connection in my own home in order to communicate my work to the communities more effectively. My work is targeted at rural communities and small businesses to produce and process safe food and reduce the incidence of food-borne diseases.” Kuwait’s Assistant Undersecretary for Public Health Affairs Dr Ali Al-Saif, who addressed the award ceremony Thursday evening on the sidelines of the 61st World Health Assembly (WHA), told the august meeting that Kuwait had also supported strengthening research in the medical field to combat disease and to improve medical care.
He added that this prize aimed at encouraging medical doctors to enhance their research.
Al-Seif said that because of its conviction of the important role WHO played, the State of Kuwait had supported several WHO projects including its participation in a financial contribution towards building the East Mediterranean regional office in Egypt, set a prize for combating heart disease, cancer and others in the Eastern Mediterranean region, and made a substantial donation towards the establishment of the WHO emergency center in Geneva.
The WHA is the supreme decision-making body of WHO.