MANILA -- Healthcare reforms and new strategies to combat poverty-linked diseases stifling economic growth in East Asia and the Pacific are among key issues to be discussed at an upcoming annual World Health Organization (WHO) regional meeting.

The five-day ministerial meeting of the WHO's Western Pacific Regional Office will be held in Kyoto, Japan from September 16.

Shigeru Omi, WHO regional director for the Western Pacific, said a top priority was to beef up the region's medical arsenal against tuberculosis (TB), HIV/AIDS and malaria -- diseases associated with poverty.

"We have to break the cycle between poverty and disease which are closely associated and with one reinforcing the other," he told AFP. Citing TB as an example, he said the stark truth was that about 1,000 people in the region were dying of the disease every year "much higher than terrorism which is topping the news daily."

He said the benefits of diagnosing and treating TB far outweighed the economic costs of leaving the devastating disease untreated. China accounts for more than half of notified TB cases in the region.

The Kyoto meeting would consider an eight-point action program for governments to combat TB, including a review of national action plans to slash by half the prevalence and deaths due to the disease by 2010.

Aside from TB, the region is also grappling with threats posed by malaria and AIDS.

Although the prevalence of HIV -- the virus that causes AIDS -- continues to be low in the region compared with prevalence rates elsewhere, there was a risk "this may lead to complacency," Omi said.

In countries with large populations, even if transmission was relatively low, big numbers were infected every day, he said.

Surveys in China, Malaysia and Vietnam show an increasing proportion of sex workers also inject drugs and become HIV infected.

Projects to combat TB, AIDS and malaria in the region accounted for nearly 60 million dollars or about 10 percent of the first round of grants allocated from April 2002 from a UN-led global fund for the three diseases.

The second round of grants will follow before the end of this year.

Omi also said health ministers in Kyoto would take part in roundtable discussions on the "pressing issue" of unhealthy diets and physical inactivity -- the major risk factors of non-communicable diseases like diabetes, heart attacks and cancer.

Diabetes is linked to obesity, which has reached epidemic proportions in the region, officials say. "People are beginning to realize that health risks (should be checked) upstream than downstream," Omi said. "But there is much resistance from politicians and even medical doctors who are much more interested in curative services rather than prevention."

A document prepared for the Kyoto meeting warned governments not to take a "business as usual" approach to addressing the issue of unhealthy diets and physical inactivity.

Officials will also discuss the rapidly-changing role of public health systems and services in the region, which WHO says are unable to cope well with modern day challenges -- including globalization, migration and potential use of bioterrorism.

"The time has come for us to revisit the definition of what is public health and its functions," Omi said.

He said the main thrust of health reforms were decentralization and encouraging competition and developing the private sector, but few of these reforms included changes in the public health infrastructures.