World Health Organization
WHO (World Health Organization) is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system. It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends. WHO was founded in 1948. 193 countries and two associate members are WHO’s membership. They meet every year at the World Health Assembly in Geneva to set policy for the Organization, approve the Organization’s budget. Over 8000 public health experts including doctors, epidemiologists, scientists, managers, administrators and other professionals from all over the world work for WHO in 147 country offices, six regional offices and at the headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
WHO officials periodically review and update the agency’s leadership priorities. Over the period 2014–19, WHO’s leadership priorities were aimed at:
1. Promoting development
2. Fostering health security
3. Strengthening health systems
4. Harnessing research, information and evidence
5. Enhancing partnerships
6. Improving performance
The work encompassed by those priorities is spread across a number of health-related areas. WHO also keeps member countries informed of the latest developments in cancer research, drug development, disease prevention, control of drug addiction, vaccine use, and health hazards of chemicals and other substances.
WHO sponsors measures for the control of epidemic and endemic disease by promoting mass campaigns involving nationwide vaccination programs, instruction in the use of antibiotics and insecticides, the improvement of laboratory and clinical facilities for early diagnosis and prevention, assistance in providing pure-water supplies and sanitation systems, and health education for people living in rural communities. These campaigns have had some success against AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and a variety of other diseases. In May 1980 smallpox was globally eradicated, a feat largely because of the efforts of WHO. In March 2020 WHO declared the global outbreak of COVID-19, a severe respiratory illness caused by a novel coronavirus that first appeared in Wuhan, China, in late 2019, to be a pandemic. The agency acted as a worldwide information centre on the illness, providing regular situation reports and media briefings on its spread and mortality rates; dispensing technical guidance and practical advice for governments, public health authorities, health care workers, and the public; and issuing updates of ongoing scientific research.
The first director general of WHO was Canadian physician Brock Chisholm, who served from 1948 to 1953. Later directors general of WHO included physician and former prime minister of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland (1998–2003), South Korean epidemiologist and public health expert Lee Jong-Wook (2003–06), and Chinese civil servant Margaret Chan (2007–17). Ethiopian public health official Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus became director general of WHO in 2017.
Codex Alimentarius Commission, joint commission of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO) established in 1963 to develop an international code of food quality standards. In its first 20 years of activity, the commission compiled hundreds of definitions of foodstuffs and additives, restrictions on food composition including limits on residual pesticides, and requirements for labeling; many of these provisions were adopted as legally binding by the more than 120 member nations. In the late 1970s committees were established under the auspices of the commission to coordinate food quality monitoring and control though out the less-developed nations.
The WHO created an Incident Management Support Team on 1 January 2020, one day after Chinese health authorities notified the organization of a cluster of pneumonia cases of unknown etiology. On 5 January the WHO notified all member states of the outbreak and in subsequent days provided guidance to all countries on how to respond, and confirmed the first infection outside China. The organization warned of limited human-to-human transmission on 14 January, and confirmed human-to-human transmission one week later. On 30 January the WHO declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), considered a "call to action" and "last resort" measure for the international community and a pandemic on 11 March. The WHO's recommendations were followed by many countries including Germany, Singapore and South Korea, but not by the United States. The WHO subsequently established a program to deliver testing, protective, and medical supplies to low-income countries to help them manage the crisis. While organizing the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic and overseeing "more than 35 emergency operations" for cholera, measles and other epidemics internationally, the WHO has been criticized for praising China's public health response to the crisis while seeking to maintain a "diplomatic balancing act" between the United States and China. Commentators including John Mackenzie of the WHO's emergency committee and Anne Schuchat of the US CDC have stated that China's official tally of cases and deaths may be an underestimation. David Heymann, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said in response that "China has been very transparent and open in sharing its data... and they opened up all of their files with the WHO.
WHO addresses government health policy with two aims: firstly, "to address the underlying social and economic determinants of health through policies and programmes that enhance health equity and integrate pro-poor, gender-responsive, and human rights-based approaches" and secondly "to promote a healthier environment, intensify primary prevention and influence public policies in all sectors so as to address the root causes of environmental threats to health".