The World Health Organization (WHO) is far from perfect. Nevertheless, it’s still worth paying attention to what its head said today.
“While we have all undoubtedly been impacted by the pandemic, the poorest and most marginalized have been hit hardest – both in terms of lives and livelihoods lost,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a biologist, public health researcher, and official from Eritrea who has been WHO’s Director-General since 2017. Scaling up production and equitable distribution of vaccines remains the major barrier to ending the acute stage of the pandemic, added Tedros who also noted: “It is a travesty that in some countries health workers and those at-risk groups remain completely unvaccinated.”
Tedros’ remarks came on World Health Day, which marks the fact that on April 7, 1948, WHO’s constitution, which was drafted in 1946, went into effect (because it had been ratified by a majority of the UN’s 51 member states). Today’s #stampoftheday – 3- and 8-cent stamps honoring the WHO issued by the UN in 1956 – mark that anniversary and highlight important work that still needs to be done.
According to its website WHO, which now has 194 members, “works worldwide to promote health, keep the world safe, and serve the vulnerable.” The site adds: “Our goal is to ensure that a billion more people have universal health coverage, to protect a billion more people from health emergencies, and provide a further billion people with better health and well-being.”
While the WHO has played a leading role in several public health achievements, most notably the eradication of smallpox and the near-eradication of polio, it has long had its problems, many of which became evident in its less-than-stellar response to the outbreak of Ebola about ten years ago. Given this, Akish Jha, now the dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health asked in a 2017 article, “does the world still need a WHO” particularly because, unlike 1948, there now are hundreds of other global health entities.
“The answer is unequivocally yes,” he contended. “…Only the WHO has the membership (and thus, the legitimacy) to engage in collective action.” Moreover, he added, “the WHO receives too little credit for navigating the inter-sectorial nature of global health. Global health is complex, and health outcomes are the product of a number of political and social factors that are not traditional health issues.” Given this, he concluded, “we need an organization that can effectively engage with non-health entities to ensure we consider the health effects of policies.”
WHO, of course, did not reform itself and its shortcomings were on display at the start of the global pandemic when, under pressure from the Chinese government, it egregiously downplayed the threat posed by the novel coronavirus. In the spring, then President Donald Trump seized on these failures to announce the US would defund the WHO.
While many agreed the organization was still flawed, most also agreed with sentiments expressed by University of North Carolina Professor Zeynep Tufekc, who, in April wrote in The Atlantic: “We must save the WHO, but not by reflexively pretending that nothing’s wrong with it…We should be realistic and honest about the corruption and shortcomings that have engulfed the leadership of an organization that is deeply flawed, but that is still the jewel of the international health community….It needs to be restructured, and the first order of business is to make sure that it’s led by health professionals who are given the latitude to be independent and the means to resist bullying and pressure, and who demonstrate spine and an unfailing commitment to the Hippocratic oath when they count most.”
That hasn’t happened yet and there are those contend that a WHO recent report on the pandemic’s origins released in late March didn’t fully reflect the restrictions the Chinese government placed on the researchers who prepared the assessment.
Nevertheless, it’s still worth paying attention to the laid out today by Tedros and others. Noting that at least half of the world’s population still do not have access to essential health services, while 100 million are pushed into poverty each year due to medical expenses, he called for more investment in primary health care. “As countries move forward post-COVID-19, it will be vital to avoid cuts in public spending on health and other social sectors,” he observed. “Such cuts are likely to increase hardship among already disadvantaged groups.”
He also encouraged national authorities to prioritize health and social protection, noting: “Access to healthy housing, in safe neighborhoods, is key to achieving health for all. But too often, the lack of basic social services for some communities traps them in a spiral of sickness and insecurity. That must change.” He also said that countries needed to increase efforts to provide health and other basic services to rural communities, which are home 80 per cent of the world’s populations living in extreme poverty. He added 7 out of 10 people in such areas do not have access to basic sanitation and water services.
Winnie Byanyima, executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS also called on world leaders to address the global inequalities in health care. After noting that 10,000 people die every day because they cannot access services she asserted, “now, in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, leaders across the world have an opportunity to build the health systems that were always needed, and which cannot be delayed any longer. We cannot tinker around the edges-we need radical, transformative shifts. The COVID-19 response gives us an opportunity to change the rules and guarantee equality.”
It’s worth listening to this call for action, sent, as it were, via a stamp from 1956.
Be safe, stay well, fight for justice, and work for peace.