In recent weeks, the World Health Organization (WHO) has been accused of mismanaging the Covid-19 epidemic.
The international agency has certainly come in for its share of criticism, and some of it is warranted. The WHO was slow to publicly recognize the scale of the threat posed by the outbreak in China. Though the organization declared the virus a global health emergency in January, its Director-General didn’t begin characterizing it as a pandemic until March 11, when the virus had already been confirmed in at least 114 countries. In part, that’s probably because, like most large bureaucracies, the WHO is a cautious institution, and probably it did not want to generate excessive panic.
WHO’s constitution was ratified on April 7, 1948, under the UN; April 7 has since been celebrated as ‘World Health Day’. WHO works worldwide to promote health, keep the world safe, and serve the vulnerable. its goal is to ensure that people have universal health coverage, to protect people from health emergencies, and provide people with better health and well-being. WHO coordinates health research, clinical trials, drug safety, vaccine development, surveillance, virus sharing, etc.. and acquires operational responsibilities through ‘health emergency program’ during emergencies. The Pandemic Influenza Preparedness framework is set up under this program.
In recent years Global Alliance for Infections in Surgery joined various global initiatives for health promotion promoted by WHO. Clean Your Hands incorporates a global annual day to focus on the importance of improving hand hygiene in health care with WHO providing support for these efforts. A suite of hand hygiene improvement tools and materials have been created from a base of existing research and evidence and from rigorous testing, as well as working closely with a range of experts in the field. The tools aim to help the translation into practice of a multimodal strategy for improving and sustaining hand hygiene in health care. A global action plan to tackle the growing problem of resistance to antibiotics and other antimicrobial medicines was endorsed at the Sixty-eighth World Health Assembly in May 2015. One of the key objectives of the World Antibiotic Awareness Week is to improve awareness and understanding of antimicrobial resistance through effective communication, education and training. World Sepsis Day is held on September 13th every year and is an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against sepsis. Sepsis is the common final pathway of all acute infections. It arises when the body’s response to an infection injures its own tissues and organs. It may lead to shock, multiple organ failure, and death, especially if not recognized early and treated promptly. Sepsis accounts for millions of deaths worldwide annually. It is poorly known that sepsis can be prevented and that early recognition and treatment can reduce sepsis mortality.
WHO has continued to play an indispensable role during the current Covid-19 outbreak. During this pandemic WHO has worked 24/7 to analyse data, provide advice, coordinate with partners, help countries prepare, increase supplies and manage expert networks. In fact, anticipating the pandemic state would have increased awareness of the emergency of the pandemic. However, WHO probably preferred not to generate excessive panic. Such a global agency that has been promoting health worldwide for more than 70 years cannot be judged only for that.
World Health Organization manages to support national health plans and emergency responses in more than 150 countries with an annual global budget smaller than that of a great hospital system. It is also the only organization in the world with the infrastructure and ability to identify emerging diseases, as it did with Covid-19 and every major health threat in modern history. They are our eyes and ears around the world. The world must unite to stand by WHO.
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