On April 21st, the commemorative ceremony was held at Takaramachi Campus in celebration of Kanazawa University to assist WHO (the World Health Organization) as a Collaborating Centre, and approximately 750 persons including students, faculty and staff members attended.
WHO collaborating centers are institutions such as research institutes, parts of universities or academies, which are designated by the Director-General to carry out activities in support of the Organization’s programs. Currently, there are 34 WHO collaborating centers in Japan. Kanazawa University was selected in the fields of hepatocarcinoma and hepatitis countermeasures. We are the world’s first collaborating center for liver cancer countermeasures, and are the fourth in the world for hepatitis countermeasures.
At the ceremony, following the greeting remarks by Prof. Shuichi KANEKO (Director of Institute of Medical, Pharmaceutical and Health Sciences, Kanazawa University), Dr. Young-soo SHIN (Regional Director for the Western Pacific Region, WHO) delivered a congratulatory speech. After the speech from Dr. SHIN, President Koetsu YAMAZAKI noted in his welcome address, “We recognize that the activities such as hepatitis measures we have worked on so far have been approved by WHO, and we firmly commit to further developing collaborative cooperation with WHO.“. He was followed by Hiroyasu TAKENAKA (Vice-Governor of Ishikawa Prefecture), Yoshiyuki YAMANO (Mayor of Kanazawa City) and Toshiki ONO (Director of Hepatitis Control Office, Health Service Bureau, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare).
Afterword, Dr. SHIN gave a special lecture and talked about his experience as the regional director of WHO, the importance of cooperation between Japan and WHO and so on. A lively question and answer session in English took place about “What you can do to work for WHO in the future” between Dr. SHIN and the students.
