The World Health Organization

By Pablo Ruiz

The World Health Organization (WHO) is a United Nations specialised organisation in charge of international public health. Often perceived as a body that lacks efficacy and credibility, it is the best intergovernmental organization in the world today. Capable of working with different nations, political affiliation and freedoms, the World Health Organization often applies in one country, success lessons learned in another country.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pablo Ruiz
• Release date: Nov 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005059293

Book preview

The World Health Organization (WHO)

The World Health Organization (WHO) is a United Nations specialised organisation in charge of international public health. According to the WHO Constitution, the organization's major goal is the attainment of the highest attainable level of health by all peoples. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, and has six regional offices as well as 150 field offices across the world. The WHO was founded on April 7, 1948. On July 24, that year, the World Health Assembly (WHA), the agency's governing body, had its inaugural meeting. The WHO absorbed the assets, employees, and responsibilities of the League of Nations' Health Organization and the Office International d'Hygiène Publique, as well as the International Classification of Diseases (ICD). After a large influx of financial and technological resources, it began construction in earnest in 1951. The WHO's role includes campaigning for universal health care, monitoring public health hazards, coordinating health-emergency responses, and promoting health and well-being. It gives nations technical support, establishes worldwide health standards, and gathers data on global health challenges. The World Health Report is a periodical that gives analyses of global health issues. The WHO also functions as a venue for health-related debates.

The WHO has been at the forefront of major public health triumphs, including the eradication of smallpox, the near-eradication of polio, and the discovery of an Ebola vaccine. Its current goals include communicable illnesses such as HIV/AIDS, Ebola, COVID-19, malaria, and TB, as well as noncommunicable diseases such as heart disease and cancer; a healthy diet, nutrition, and food security; occupational health; and drug misuse. The World Health Assembly, the organization's decision-making body, elects and advises an executive board of 34 health professionals. It appoints the director-general, establishes objectives and priorities, and approves the budget and operations. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of Ethiopia is the director-general. The WHO is funded by donations from member countries (both assessed and voluntary) and private contributors. Its overall approved budget for 2020–2021 is more than $7.2 billion, the vast bulk of which comes from voluntary contributions from member nations. Contributions are calculated using a method that considers GDP per capita. Germany (which gave 12.18 percent of the budget), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (11.65 percent), and the United States were among the major contributors (7.85 percent ).

The International Sanitary Conferences (ISC), the first of which took place on June 23, 1851, were a series of conferences that lasted until 1938. The inaugural conference, held in Paris, was nearly entirely focused with cholera, which would be the ISC's primary preoccupation for the rest of the nineteenth century. With the origin, and even communicability, of many epidemic illnesses still unknown and a source of scientific debate, worldwide consensus on suitable interventions was difficult to achieve. Seven of these international conferences were held during a 41-year period before any resulted in a multi-state international accord. The seventh meeting, held in Venice in 1892, culminated in the adoption of a convention. It was only concerned with the sanitary regulation of cargo passing through the Suez Canal, and it was an attempt to prevent the introduction of cholera. Sixteen of the 19 governments present in the Venice conference