Minister of Health Dr. Ali Al-Obaidi lauded the Gulf Excellence Award, which is considered one of the most "outstanding" initiatives for constructive cooperation among the ministries of health in the GCC states and the GCC Executive Office of the Council of Health Ministers. This statement came during a ceremony honoring the winners of the fifth session of the Gulf Excellence Award in health media, which was held Monday evening in Salwa Hall at Marina Hotel. The initiative embodies the role and responsibility of health media in the GCC states as key partners in development programs and health policies in various fields, said Al-Obaidi. He stressed that the successful implementation of this initiative has led to an increased desire to participate in the contest and raise awareness of health terms and definitions that the initiative aims to spread in the community in order to achieve the goals of health promotion. The contest's slogan "encouraging physical exercise" is in compliance with the slogan of the 76th GCC health ministers' meeting to be hosted in Kuwait "together to combat chronic non-infectious diseases" as a developmental priority, he added. He emphasized the importance of the roles of media and awareness based on the scientific facts and evidences to encourage physical activity for the prevention of chronic non-infectious diseases such as diabetes, heart and vascular diseases, cancer and chronic respiratory diseases. Such diseases stand in the way of the development programs whose prevention strategies need to strengthen partnership with the media and journalists, develop innovative programs to raise health media awareness and to address bad health habits such as physical idleness, smoking and obesity, Al-Obaidi concluded.