"The most important elements right now are both a development of a concerted public health plan, which involves setting up significant detection, and setting up the hospitals' ability to diagnose, treat and push vaccines, " said Jeremy Levin , also in March.

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The objective of the interagency meeting, chaired by Juan Clos, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Director of UNHABITAT, and attended by senior representatives of DESA, FAO, ILO, IMF, UNDP, UNICEF, UNWOMEN, WB, and WHO amongst others, was to forge stronger partnership among UN agencies in a concerted effort to address shared urban development challenges.

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In such an approach, alongside concerted crop eradication, and a continuing development of Afghanistan's economy, lies a distant glimmer of hope.

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Elias Zerhouni, the head of research and development at Sanofi and the former director of the National Institutes of Health, says a concerted effort was needed to make sure that existing efforts at cutting clinical trial costs do not fail.

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