Published:
Feb 29, 2008
The World Health Organization was founded April 7, 1948, and that date established World Health Day, which this year presented the following goals:
· Raise awareness and public understanding of global and locally relevant health consequences of climate change.
· Advocate for interdisciplinary and other partnerships from the local to international level that seek to improve health.
· Generate effective actions by local communities, organizations, health systems and governments to reduce the impact of climate change on health through urgent application of mitigation and adaptation techniques.
· Demonstrate the health community’s role in facing the challenges globally and in regions, countries and communities.
· Spark commitment and action among governments, international organizations, donors, civil society, business and communities (especially among young people) to anchor health at the heart of the climate change agenda.
“Climate change” specifically appears in three of the five goals, placing the gauntlet square at the feet of governments to cooperate with a vision for improved global health. It is not surprising, then, that the theme of World Health Day is “protecting health from climate change.”
The World Health Organization has made its biggest mark fighting infectious disease in the trenches.
The organization has sponsored teams of physicians and scientists to address outbreaks of alarming new infectious diseases such as Ebola or continued in efforts to eradicate older diseases such as tuberculosis.
Its first stunning success involved the worldwide eradication of smallpox in 1980, culminating 20 years of international cooperation to end this dreaded disease.
As recently as November, an Ebola outbreak occurred in the western district of Uganda. In all there were 149 cases and 37 fatalities. WHO’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network coordinated a number of organizations, including Doctors without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontièrs), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNICEF and the World Food Program.
Isolating and containing deadly Ebola fever outbreaks has been a great public-health success story, showing that WHO remains the center of response to global health challenges.
Through international partnerships with the
The WHO global slate is a large one, with worldwide implications that reach into every community.
Tuberculosis affected 8.8 million people in 2005, killing 1.6 million.
Efforts continue through WHO to eradicate this deadly malady. Also, treatable malaria continues to kill, sparking WHO efforts.
The ease of travel from one country to another requires adequate surveillance and response if populations are to be protected from the spread of communicable disease.
It is estimated that 2.1 billion airline passengers traveled in 2006. An outbreak in one part of the world is only hours away from becoming a threat somewhere else.
New infectious diseases are occurring at an alarming rate, more than one per year. There are more than 40 diseases today that were unknown a generation ago.
About 1,100 epidemic events have been verified by WHO in the past five years. Add to this the growing resistance to antibiotic therapy by known pathogens.
Infectious diseases are not the only public-health threat. Included on WHO’s global health plate are concerns about increasing food-borne illness as exemplified by mad cow disease or lethal strains of E. coli.
Added concerns address toxic chemical accidents, radionuclear events and environmental disasters.
Avian flu, SARS and
Should a major outbreak occur in the
That is also true in a potential chemical contamination, nuclear accident or environmental disaster. Our fragmented system of health care may be ill-prepared to deal with such events, with so many uninsured.
These numbers continue to climb and add a terrible burden to our communities and to those responsible for providing health care.
The World Health Organization focuses attention on the effects of climate change, the central theme of World Health Day 2008. This issue, however, joins a list of many other health threats felt around the world.