Nairobi — Governments and other health care providers have been urged to come up with women-specific approaches in promoting health.

Health professionals and policymakers at the Global Health Conference, which ended in Nairobi on Friday, said specific strategies for women were needed to win the war on preventable diseases.

Women needed to be addressed specifically "in light of their unique role in ensuring the success of health promotion programmes as both beneficiaries and care givers."

A document dubbed The Nairobi Call to Action produced by participants at the end of the conference highlights five urgent measures governments need to take to fend off a surge of preventable diseases.

Economic growth

Participants agreed governments had to accept the responsibilities if they are to deal with threats to economic growth posed by diseases.

The Nairobi Call to Action also asks health care providers to involve communities in the development of future policies and action plans.

It also calls for the promotion of basic literacy and the need to build on existing resources and networks to ensure community participation.

African governments were also asked to revitalise primary health care by "fostering community participation and putting people at the centre of care".

The Nairobi Call to Action will be on the agenda when African Union health ministers next meet and is expected to have a major influence on future policies.

Governments were also asked to improve surveying and monitoring of health literacy levels of individuals and communities while setting up systems making it easy to do so.

They were also required to assure access to health for all citizens and remove financial barriers that make access to health care impossible.

Poor education of communities on health and behaviour were cited as factors that hindered progress in preventing the spread of diseases while insufficient health staff was cited as another major problem.

For example, Kenya has a shortage of 24,000 nurses but can only hire 4,000 each financial year.

Review policies

The five-day conference was attended by more than 600 experts from more than 100 countries.

Speaking at the close of the conference, Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka said the government has been "positively challenged" by the call to action.

"We shall review our current policies and programmes to integrate health promotion," he said.