Iran and Azerbaijan bilateral meeting on Points of Entry (ground crossing) was held at Tabriz University of Medical Sciences (TUOMS) in association with WHO/EMRO and EURO on 25-27 September, 2016.
The meeting was attended by Dr. Sameen Siddiqi (WHO representative in Iran), Dr. Thomas Hoffman (WHO supervisor), Dr. Mohammad Mehdi Gooya (head of Center for Communicable Disease Control of the Iranian Ministry of Health), Dr. Mohammad Hossein Somi (TUOMS chancellor) and a number of authorities from International Organization for Migration, and Iran and Azerbaijan ministries of health.
In this gathering, Dr. Siddiqi expressed the willingness of WHO to increase cross-border collaborations in communicable diseases control between the neighboring countries and emphasized the importance of following the guidelines suggested by International Health Regulations (IHR). In addition, he thanked both sides for making this event possible and requested the parties to be grouped into 3 working teams in order to discuss and analyze the common grounds of collaboration. After panel discussions, the results and common concerns of each team were accumulated and reported for further investigation.
In the second day, there was a joint visit to Jolfa border (an Iran-Azerbaijan PoE) and an attempt was made to evaluate the current situation of a sample border, and flowingly, take any needed actions.