KATHMANDU: Minister for Health and Population Pradip Paudel has informed the global community about the efforts being made in Nepal’s digital health sector. He was addressing the United Nations Regional Ministerial Meeting in Bangkok, Thailand today.

Minister Paudel expressed his commitment that Nepal has already made policy decisions to start efforts for the integration of scattered health statistics of the citizens.

“Nepal has started to link population-related information in the citizen identification card and is working to integrate data related to health as well,” he added.

Minister Paudel expressed that the issues seen in policy-making due to the lack of integrated data are expected to be organized now, stating inter-ministerial cooperation in digital health reform will be further strengthened.

During the conference, Health Minister in talks with Ms. Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), that there are technical difficulties in the transformation of digital systems, and therefore cooperation from the UN agencies is expected.

Joint Secretary at the Ministry of Health and Population, Dhundiraj Niraula, said that the positive response received from the Asia-Pacific region towards the efforts being made on behalf of Nepal has encouraged further work.

Stating that the Ministry is working to bring the population policy soon, he mentioned that the digital system will play a special role in this.