04/09/2023
Despite great successes in the fight against various diseases, the World Health Organization has also had to take a lot of criticism in its 75-year existence.
In April 1945, politicians from around the world met in San Francisco to form the United Nations. At the meeting, representatives of Brazil and China proposed the creation of another global organization that would specifically address health issues, far removed from political issues.
Three years later, on April 7, 1948, the World Health Organization (WHO) was founded, which stated that health is a human right for everyone “regardless of race, religion, political opinion, or economic or social situation” and that “the health of all peoples is essential to the achievement of peace and security.”
The organization is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland and has six regional offices. “There is no doubt that we will see more frequent and more serious health threats in the future,” Wafaa El-Sadr, a professor of epidemiology and medicine at Columbia University in New York, told DW. “Therefore, we must work hard to counter these threats together. That means thinking beyond national priorities and uniting around common priorities. And above all, to support organizations like the WHO that work for the common good.”
eradication of smallpox
One of WHO’s greatest achievements came in 1980, when the organization officially announced that it had eradicated a common but deadly disease: smallpox. “Perhaps the most notable achievement was the eradication of smallpox, the only human disease to be eradicated,” says El-Sadr. “Although many organizations were involved, WHO’s role was crucial in uniting the world around this goal,” he explains.
Christoph Gradmann, Professor of History of Medicine at the University of Oslo (Norway), says the eradication of smallpox is a perfect example of WHO’s best work in political agreement scenarios. “If the member states don’t agree on how to proceed, the organization is paralyzed,” says Gradmann. “During the Cold War, there was broad agreement between the two blocs on the goal of eradicating smallpox,” he says.
An Ebola failure?
Many experts agree that the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, whose global emergency lasted until 2016, is among the WHO’s worst works. Among other things, the organization was criticized for not reacting to the situation in a timely manner. However, El-Sadr estimates that many criticisms stem from ignorance of how the entity works.
“There were unrealistic expectations, many expected that WHO would deploy forces to deal with the outbreak, but that is not within the mandate of the institution. Their role is to lead the response, to lead, not to go into a country to address a specific threat,” al-Sadr said. Gradmann agrees. “WHO is a democratic organization, it’s not the world health police ‘ he claims.
The fight against malaria is one of the greatest setbacks in WHO history.
In fact, WHO has no authority to act in a member state unless the same country asks for help. However, Rüdiger Krech, director of WHO health promotion, explains that the organization made significant changes in its structure after the Ebola epidemic. For example, it is now less dependent on national governments to obtain critical information to respond to a serious situation.
“We work with technology companies that can let us know about an outbreak before official confirmation comes from any government. They tell us that ‘we see a lot of people googling the symptoms of this disease,’ and we use satellite imagery from space agencies to show regions where a lot of people have fevers,” Krech explains.
The opposite of malaria
WHO’s refusal to attempt to eradicate malaria in the 1960s is another example of the organization’s failed policy. In 1955, the Global Malaria Eradication Program was launched, a path that still has much to do. Things looked promising, with 15 countries showing brilliant early success in tackling the disease.
But in sub-Saharan Africa there has been little or no progress, and in many places the end of the program has meant an increase in malaria cases. In 1969 the program was discontinued. “The global program has brought the WHO to the brink of bankruptcy,” says Gradmann. “Member States lost confidence in the initiative and withdrew funding,” she adds.
According to Gradmann, one of the reasons that led to the failure of the plan is that malaria is not just a human disease, but has reservoirs in nature. This is a big difference compared to smallpox.
The WHO was asked about their response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.
And the COVID-19?
At the start of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic that is causing COVID-19, some critics, including then-US President Donald Trump, complained that the WHO had not done enough to help member states deal with the pandemic. But El-Sadr and Gradmann insist that it is not the WHO’s job to perform that function. “During the pandemic, the WHO distributed information and did administrative work,” says Gradmann. “Initiatives to combat the disease would have to come from the member states.”
El-Sadr emphasizes that national governments are responsible for taking measures to contain the pandemic as best as possible. They were advised by the WHO, by the way, but the recommendations were not binding. The entity “was handicapped by a world divided into nations that defended their own interests at the expense of others and forgot the principles that constituted the founding of the WHO,” estimates El-Sadr.
(dzc/lgc)