The new acting Medical Officer of Health says it was an exciting day as he sat in on his first Windsor-Essex County Health Unit Board Meeting.
It was announced on April 21, that as of May 1, Dr. Mehdi Aloosh would take over as the acting MOH.
Aloosh is taking over the role from Dr. Shanker Nesathurai, who has been in the position since October 2021.
During his first sit in of the WECHU Board Meeting, he spoke passionately on prevention of human papillomavirus, also known as HPV, and the importance of vaccination in the region.
HPV is the most common sexually transmitted disease in Canada, and three out of four individuals who are sexually active will be affected at least once in their lifetime.
Aloosh says that more than 95 per cent of those diagnosed with cervical cancer is due to HPV.
He says to cervical cancer can be eliminated by 2040 with over a 90 per cent vaccination rate by 2025. Currently, Windsor-Essex has a 60 per cent vaccination rate for HPV.
He says the vaccination rate is low for HPV, and he wanted to talk about the importance of increasing that rate during his first meeting.
"It is preventable. That's a cancer which is preventable. And there's not much prevention methods like vaccines with many cancers. So, that's something that I thought is very important to talk about."
Dr. Aloosh says it was a productive first meeting.
"That was exciting, and meeting the Board of Health, meeting people who I was seeing them over Zoom meetings, so that was exciting. And we had a very productive meeting, and I hope that we can continue working on good stuff in the future."
He says his main goal in this new role is impact.
"Impact of the population of health which I think that this role is positioned very well to achieve that goal. I was doing family medicine for about a decade, and now I see the potential for the impact with the help of an expert group."
Dr. Aloosh has experience to the position as a public health and preventive medicine specialist, and a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, as well as experience as a public health physician at Public Health Ontario.