Hello everyone and welcome to this week's blog post, which is the first in a series regarding public health. This week, I will be exploring in detail the World Health Organisation, including its foundation and impact on global society today.
In our interconnected, developing world, public health has quickly become an issue which has jumped to the top of the list of priorities for any country. However, in the last few years world leaders have realised that, not only does the health of another country impact the health or wealth of your own, but that by sharing our technology and expertise, we can work together to combat disease on a global scale, saving many more lives than we otherwise could. As such, the World Health Organisation was set up.
The World Health Organisation (WHO), which was established on the 7th April 1948, is a specialist agency working directly under the United Nations Economic and Social Council, which strives to ensure that one billion people in the world have access to healthcare infrastructure. It also aims to provide a billion people with protection from medical emergencies and a billion people with better general health and wellbeing. As such, the World Health Organisation works on both the macro and micro scale, developing and instituting a policy to combat global social issues, as well as deploying medical professionals following the outbreak of epidemics (such as Ebola; see here for my blog post about the UN involvement following the latest epidemic.)
Aside from controlling and preventing the spread of diseases following the outbreak of epidemics and treating civilians in war zones such as Yemen, WHO also has completed thousands of large-scale projects since it was founded in 1948, including its continued action against the AIDS epidemic. Following the start of the UN's programme to combat the AIDS epidemic in 1986, in 1996, UNAIDS was formed.
UNAIDS, which stands for the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS, was formed to provide leadership in combating the epidemic, as well as coordinating research on the topic to formulate an effective response. WHO then continued its fight against AIDS with a global fund to fight AIDS in 2002 and other programmes since then. As a result of WHO's effort to combat AIDS, progress has been made. More importantly, the work of UNAIDS' has been critical in reducing the stigma around AIDS, making it much more likely that people who are infected seek treatment.
Furthermore, the WHO has also been instrumental in reducing the prevalence of measles across the world. This began with the formation of the measles initiative in 2001 and then continued in 2010 when the World Health Assembly established milestones that they wanted to meet in order to eradicate measles by 2015. This included a pledge to increase the number of people vaccinated against the disease, leading to the Global Vaccine Action Plan in 2012. As a result of this recent global push to improve the number of people vaccinated against the disease, by 2018, there was a 73% reduction in the number of people who contracted measles. This clearly underlines the positive impact the World Health Organisation has on the world.
The World Health Organisation is not without its controversy, however, which is mainly focused on its efforts to respond to epidemics. For example, in 2009, there was a swine flu pandemic, which gained international attention when it began infecting thousands of people in Mexico. Indeed, the strain was so virulent that the Mexican government was forced to close the public transport system in Mexico City in efforts to halt the spread of the disease. Nevertheless, before long, the flu quickly spread and infected millions of people, putting massive strains on clinics around the world. In fact, it is estimated that 10-20% of the global population contracted the disease, with around 200,000 people sadly losing their lives.
Throughout this pandemic, the WHO took several steps to limit the spread of the disease, including declaring a pandemic in June 2009 in response to the situation. However, they quickly came under criticism, most noticeably allegations that major pharmaceutical firms had placed pressure on the WHO to declare a pandemic when no pandemic existed, in order to sell more flu vaccines (H1N1 vaccines). Following these allegations, an investigation was conducted which revealed, while some of the experts who had advised the WHO to declare a pandemic had financial links with major pharmaceutical companies who made lots of money selling flu vaccinations, there was no definitive link or evidence of collusion. Furthermore, the investigation also emphasised the point that there was plenty of scientific data that supported their hypothesis.
In addition, the World Health Organisation has also faced criticism over its handling of the 2014 Ebola outbreak. Following an internal WHO report, which called for a $100 million emergency fund to deal with global health crises as well as a rapid response team for dangerous epidemics, the WHO did increase its spending on medical emergencies. Nonetheless, considering how much other countries spent (the government of the USA alone spent $2.4 billion on Ebola response), one could argue that the lack of funds the World Health Organisation possess drastically limit its effectiveness in a global health crisis. Furthermore, the WHO was also criticised for being slow and bureaucratic in its response.
In conclusion, I personally believe that despite this criticism, the World Health Organisation is in fact an incredibly powerful organisation which is able to enact real change in the world. This is because, by working as a subunit of the United Nations, it can bring countries together under one banner to fight the pressing health issues of our time. Furthermore, I would argue that its bureaucracy is a product of the fact that the organisation must coordinate the response on a global scale, between many different countries. Nevertheless, by doing so, it is able to bring together expertise from across the world and deliver them in an efficient and effective manner.
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