Research Paper Rough
The WHO is continuously working on its objectives and missions and has achieved commendable success in its fight against communicable diseases worldwide. Its efforts and achievements must be acknowledged. As given on WHO’s website, “WHO 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”(World
Health Org. ). The WHO has played a significant role in the eradication of smallpox. Its current priorities include, in particular, Bola, HIVE/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. Communicable diseases are caused by infections. Infection is the invasion of a host organism’s body tissues by disease-causing agents, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to these organisms and the toxins they produce (“Infection”). The 2012-2013 WHO budget identified 1 3 areas among which funding was distributed.
Two of those thirteen areas related to communicable diseases: the first, to reduce he health, social and economic burden of communicable diseases in general; the second to combat HIVE/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in particular (“Programmer” 5). In its pledge to achieve “health for all by the year 2000” the WHO listed treatment of disease last among its goals, after provision of food, sanitary environment, and clean water, recognizing that medical care has less to do with health than social and environmental circumstances (Dutton, Preston, and Fund 371).
Emerging and re-emerging epidemic diseases pose an on-going threat to global health security. The WHO’s Twelfth General Programmer of Work sets the reduction of “mortality, morbidity and societal disruption resulting from epidemics…. Through prevention, preparedness, response and recovery activities” as one its five strategic imperatives (World Health Org. ). Bola or Bola Virus Disease (EVADE) is the latest threat to human health. It has taken thousands of lives in a span Of a few months. It is caused by billionaires.
Bola, formerly known as Bola hemorrhagic fever is a serious often fatal illness in humans and animals of the order primates (“Bola”). On August 8, the WHO Director-General declared this outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (“Bola”). WHO aims to prevent Bola outbreaks by maintaining surveillance for EVADE and supporting at-risk countries to develop preparedness plans (“Bola”). There is no significant treatment for Bola till date. Scientists all over the world are constantly working on possible cures and vaccines.
Many countries are helping the WHO in its research through grants and work force. The WHO also welcome the approval of Swiss regulatory authority for a trial with an experimental Bola vaccine at the Lausanne University Hospital (OHO”). The trial is receiving support from WHO and is the latest in a series of trials that are ongoing in Mali, Britain and the USA (“WHO”). The trial is one of the two in Switzerland coordinated by WHO. If the tests show up to be safe and effective either of the vaccines could be scaled up for mass production (“WHO”).
Other major communicable diseases include smallpox, influenza, malaria, tuberculosis, and HIVE/AIDS. Smallpox no longer exists in nature (“Whoops”). It took a decade long campaign of vaccination to eradicate the disease impolitely (powwow’s”). Last case was diagnosed in 1977. Three years later WHO declared the world free of the disease (powwow’s”). The WHO’s Global Influenza Programmer (SIP) provides global standards for influenza surveillance (World Health Org. ). In addition SIP collects and analyzes virologist and epidemiological influenza surveillance data from around the world (World Health Org. . For more than 50 years, WHO has been collaborating with scientists and policy makers on a global scale to develop a unified approach to manufacturing, testing and regulatory oversight of influenza vaccine development as well as their efficient use and distribution (World Health Org. ). The Malaria Policy Advisory Committee (MAC) of the World Health Organization (WHO) was formed in 2012, to provide strategic advice and technical input to WHO on all aspects Of malaria control and elimination.
In November 2013, WHO and the malaria vaccine founders group set a goal to develop vaccines designed to interrupt malaria transmission with the long-term goal of malaria eradication (“World Malaria”). DOTS is a strategy used to reduce the number of tuberculosis (TAB) cases. WHO has developed a new six point Stop TAB Strategy which builds on the successes of DOTS. Its goal is to dramatically reduce the global burden of tuberculosis by 2015 by ensuring all TAB patients benefit from universal access to high-quality diagnosis and patient-centered treatment.
The strategy also supports the development of new and effective tools to prevent, detect and treat TAB. The Stop TAB Strategy underpins the Stop TAB Partnership’s Global Plan to Stop TAB 2006-2015. (World Health Org. ). The WHO’s Department of HIVE/AIDS provides evidence-based, normative and policy support to Member States in scaling up treatment, care and prevention services to enable a comprehensive and sustainable response to HIVE in countries.
