Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis addressed the 67th session of the World Health Organisation (WHO) Assembly in Geneva, on Monday (19/5), representing the EU in the context of the Greek EU Presidency.

Georgiadis’ speech focused on climate change, characterizing it as a global issue that needs to be handled globally because of its impact on the weather, nutrition, water and air quality; the flora and fauna and on human health through the spread of viruses and epidemics.

As an EU representative, Georgiadis underlined the importance of the successful implementation of international health regulations and referred specifically to recent breakouts of epidemics such as polio, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and Ebola viruses.

He further underlined EU's concern about the ongoing humanitarian crises in regions like Central Africa, South Sudan and Syria and the disaster caused by typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in November 2013.