On the occasion of World Health Day, institutional representatives and field experts emphasized the importance of science-based decision-making and inter-institutional cooperation in addressing health challenges and building a strong and sustainable healthcare system.

These positions were presented at a roundtable organized by the Ministry of Health of Kosovo and the National Institute of Public Health of Kosovo under the motto “Together for health, we stand with science.”

The Director of the National Institute of Public Health, Ardita Baraku, stressed that reliance on science and institutional coordination are key to making the right decisions in public health.

“Even today, with the motto ‘Together for health. We stand with science,’ the importance of basing decisions on science and evidence is reaffirmed, and even more so, the need for cooperation is emphasized. The NIPHK, as the highest educational and scientific institution in the field of public health, knows well from its own experience the importance of cooperation with other institutions, understands the importance of science, and here we reiterate our readiness to stand together with science in order to make good decisions in our healthcare,” she said.

The Deputy Minister of Health, Arsim Berisha, said that it is an institutional responsibility to invest in modern technology and human capacities in order to ensure equal access to healthcare for all citizens.

According to him, only by relying on science can we have a strong and sustainable healthcare system.

That the world is preparing for a new pandemic was stated at the conference by Isme Humolli from the World Health Organization Office in Kosovo.

According to her, Kosovo in recent years has made progress in capacity building and is even seen as an example compared to countries in the region.

“We are witnessing what is happening in the world; we are in a new crisis which in one way or another affects all countries, but this inevitably brings us to the necessity of inter-institutional cooperation not only within Kosovo... Today the world is more united than ever in adopting what has been agreed and approved by member states—the global pandemic agreement. The world is already preparing for the next pandemic, which we do not know when will happen, but the goal is to develop common strategies that apply to all countries, although they must be adapted specifically, and these are in favor of public health and global security... Kosovo in the last 7–8 years has made tremendous progress with significant dynamism in capacity building, both in capacity assessment and in fulfilling recommendations to reach a level that many countries in the region are still behind on,” she said.

The Head of the Faculty of Medicine, Sefedin Muçaj, stated that scientific research at the faculty is progressing from a research-based approach toward a more advanced and internationalized one.

On the occasion of World Health Day, public health professionals at NIPHK also presented research related to public health.