2. CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
WHY DO WE NEED INTERNATIONAL HEALTH AGENCIES?
HISTORY OF THE WHO
OBJECTIVE OF THE WHO
ORGANIZATION OF THE WHO
FUNCTIONS AND EFFORTS OF THE WHO
WORLD HEALTH DAYS OF IMPORTANCE
WORLD HEALTH DAY THEMES
CONCLUSION
3. INTRODUCTION
Health of people in a country cannot be
isolated from health of mankind in general.
Health and disease have no political or
geographical boundaries. International co-
operation is necessary to ensure
collaborative efforts to eradicate disease,
maintain good health and combat
pollution. Attempts have been made to
enforce this by the establishment of various
national and international health agencies,
one of which is the WORLD HEALTH
ORGANIZATION.
4. WHY DO W NEED
INTERNATIONAL
HEALTH AGENCIES?
• Diseases spread from one country to another.
Examples are syphilis, plague, cholera, AIDS.
• Research, knowledge and development in
health should not be confined to one
country.
• Poor health conditions in a country are
associated with and lead to poor
development.
• Population explosion has to be contained if
the human race has to survive.
5. HISTORY OF THE WHO
PRE-WHO EFFORTS
• International Sanitary Conference (1851)
Objective: To introduce order and uniformity into quarantine measures,
which varied among countries.
• Pan American Sanitary Bureau (1902)
Objective: To coordinate quarantine procedures in the American states.
• The Health Organizationof The League of Nations(1923)
Objective: To take steps in matters of international concern for the
prevention and control of disease.
6. ESTABLISHMENT OF
THE WHO
• When diplomatsmet to form the United Nations
in 1945, one of the things that was discussed was
the establishment of a global health organization.
• WHO’s constitutionofficiallycame into force on 7
April 1948-a date which is now celebratedevery
year as World Health Day. It was drafted under
the Chairmanshipof Dr.Rene Sand.
• It was establishedon 7 April 1948, and
headquarteredin Geneva, Switzerland.
• The constitutionhad been signed by 61 countries
on 22 July 1946, with the first meeting of the
World Health Assembly finishing on 24 July, 1948.
7.
8. OBJECTIVE OF THE WORLD HEALTH
ORGANIZATION
• The main objective of the
WHO was stated as, “THE
ATTAINMENTOF THE
HIGHEST LEVEL OF
HEALTH BY ALL”
9. • In accordance with this objective, Health for All
(HFA) was defined in 1977, when the Thirtieth
World Health Assembly decided that
governments and WHO should focus primarily on
attaining by the year 2000 a level of health that
permits every individual to lead a socially and
economically productive life.
• The Declaration of Alma-Ata, adopted in 1978,
stated that primary health care (PHC) is the key to
attaining HFA.
11. World Health Assembly
• It is the governing body of the organization.
• Consists of delegates of the member states.
• They determine health policy and programs.
• Appoints the Director General.
• Current Director General is Tedros Adhanom
from Ethiopia.
12. Executive board
Consists of 32
members, who are
usually qualified in
healthcare.
It’s function is to give
effect to the policies
and decisions of the
WHO.
13. Secretariat
• This is the administrative wing of the WHO.
• It is headed by the Director-General
• They have 14 divisions and programs such as
-Division of Epidemiological Surveillance and Health
Assessment
-Division of Mental Health
-Division of Communicable Diseases
-Division of Family health
• It provides technical and managerial support to
member states for planning and implementing their
national health programs.
14. MEMBERSHIP
TO THE WHO
• The membership in WHO is open to all
countries.
• Associate members are countries with non self
governing territories.
• Currently, there are 191 member countries and
2 associate members.
• India became a party to the WHO Constitution
on 12 January 1948
• Dr Henk Bekedam is the WHO Representative
to India.
15. HEADQUARTERS AND
REGIONAL OFFICES
• The headquarters of the
WHO is situated in Geneva,
Switzerland.
• There are 6 regional offices:
1.South-EastAsia Region
2.EasternMediterranean
Region
3.Regionof the Americas
4.Western Pacific region
5.African Region
6.European Region
16.
17. FUNCTIONS
OF THE WHO
HEALTH SERVICE
DEVELOPMENT
BIOMEDICAL
RESEARCH
PREVENTION AND
CONTROL OF
SPECIFIC DISEASES
HEALTH
STATISTICS
FAMILY HEALTH
ENVIRONMENTAL
HEALTH
HEALTH
LITERATURE AND
INFORMATION
18. EFFORTS OF THE
ORGANIZATION
• The organizationworks to eradicatemany diseases as well as
increase awareness throughresearch, vaccination programmes,
setting up of health centres, altering health policies of nations etc.
• One of the success stories of the who was the eradicationof
Smallpox.
• Smallpox is an acute contagiousdisease caused by the variola virus.
It was one of the world's most devastatingdiseases known to
humanity.
• The last known natural case was in Somalia in 1977.It was declared
eradicatedin 1980following a global immunization campaign led by
the World Health Organization.
19. CONTROL OF EBOLA OUTBREAK EFFORTS AGAINST
AIDS
IMMUNIZATION PROGRAMS
20. WORK IN INDIA
• India, in collaboration with the WHO
successfully eradicated Polio. The last
reported case was in 2013 and in 2014,
the WHO declared India and the South
East Asia region as “Polio-free”.
• Currently, the focus is on preventing
the spread of communicable diseases
such as Tb and AIDS.
• India is on its way to eradicating
Measles through a vigorous vaccination
programme. The goal is to have n new
cases of Measles by 2020.
22. WORLD HEALTH DAY
THEMES
• WORLD HEALTH DAY is celebrated
every year on April 7th.
• It is held to mark the founding of the
WHO and is seen as an opportunity
by the organization to draw
worldwide attention to a subject of
major importance to global health
each year.
• Every year a theme is selected to
spread awareness about the
particular subject.
23.
24.
25. CONCLUSION
International health collaboration helps in tackling
a multitude of health problems. The increase in
awareness has lead to improvement in global
health in the last few decades. Thus, work of
organizations like the WHO in essential .Continued
efforts will definitely help in achieving the main
objective of the WHO, which is ensuring health for
all.
26. REFERENCES
• Essentials of Public Health Dentistry-6th edition.
• Park’s Textbook Of Preventive and Social Medicine.
• Textbook Of Preventive and Social Medicine-Mahajan and Gupta 4th
edition
• Textbook of Public Health Dentistry-SS Hiremath
• https://www.who.int (Official Website of the WHO)