75 years at the service of improving public health… this is the theme chosen to feed the reflections on the occasion of this anniversary of the World Health Organization. Indeed, for 75 years WHO has been trying to meet the challenges of global health, and there are many such challenges. From HIV/AIDS to Ebola virus disease or more recently the Covid-19 pandemic.
On April 7, 1948, the date of its foundation, the WHO already had the humble mission of promoting health. Thirty years later, the eradication of smallpox enchants member states and makes believe in the end of infectious diseases .
HIV/AIDS, a great challenge
However, the arrival of AIDS changed everything in the mid-1980s. What is called the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) quickly spread to the point of being raised to the rank of a global pandemic. In 2016, the WHO announced a strategy to expand access to treatment with the aim of ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030.
Since its mission is to promote health, preserve global security and serve vulnerable populations, WHO aims to bring people to the highest possible level of health, which is defined in legal texts as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not the absence of disease and infirmity”.
It is a question, in all neutrality, of treating and preventing the diseases of all populations without geographical, social or political distinction.
Ebola and the critics
International health security very quickly became a real issue again and the WHO is now seen as the “firefighter on duty” in terms of epidemics, while the operational response to emergencies was not in its initial mandate.
WHO’s response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa between 2013 and 2016 was heavily criticized by the international community. The organization has been criticized for underestimating the scale of the epidemic and reacting too slowly.
Covid-19 and the need for reform
And then there was more recently Covid-19 which tested the role of the WHO on a global scale. The organization decided to qualify Covid-19 as a pandemic on March 11, 2020. To fight against the disease, it launched a Solidarity Fund.
With its partners, it has also launched “Solidarity” which is an international clinical trial which aims to generate data from all over the world to find the most effective treatments against the disease.
But this pandemic has also exposed certain flaws in the WHO, such as its dependence on states and certain private interests.
Accused of having been too slow to react to the Covid-19 pandemic, the WHO has since begun a process of reform to better respond to possible health crises in the future.
Other themes
In this special broadcast on April 7, which is also World Health Day, we are going to kill two birds with one stone.
Cholera, diabetes, health insurance, vaccine, sexual health and contraception, innovation or even sport and health, we will discuss these topics throughout this program.
