Other diseases such as polio and guinea-worm disease are on the verge of eradication and, thanks to new and better methods of treatment, leprosy is also being overcome.
But, as well as fighting infectious diseases, WHO is a key player in promoting primary health care, delivering essential drugs, making cities healthier, building partnerships for health, promoting healthy lifestyles and environments to achieve health for all.
Health Promotion and the Environment:
WHO has initiated successful health promotion projects, such as Healthy Cities and Villages, Healthy Islands and Health-Promoting Schools, Hospitals and Work Sites. Some projects target vulnerable populations such as the elderly and women. Others focus on encouraging healthy lifestyles, sexual health and tobacco-free societies.
The impact of the environment on health is a high priority for WHO. One example is access to safe drinking water. WHO puts the highest priority on the development of community water supplies and sanitation facilities with the AFRICA 2000 initiative. WHO is deeply concerned with prevention and control of ionising radiation so dramatically highlighted by the Chernobyl nuclear accident. Other issues such as the health effects of electromagnetic fields and the increasing depletion of the ozone layer, are of major concern.
Scientific and Ethical Action
Improved health is not achieved just with financial resources and high technology. It requires a social conscience and a commitment to share the advances of health science throughout society.
Every field of health raises ethical questions concerning sex, birth, confidentiality and personal safety. WHO helps safeguard ethical standards by insisting, for example, that consensus must be reached on what is acceptable in cloning, that there is informed consent when carrying out experiments with humans, or estimating how much risk should be borne by volunteers testing the efficacy of drugs or vaccines. WHO brings together the world's experts to reach consensus on such key issues.
Challenges for the Future
Much of the world has benefited from better health in the 50 years since WHO was founded. But the need for WHO is greater than ever.
Cholera and malaria were major health priorities in 1948; unfortunately, after a period of decline, both are on the increase again, and so remain a problem. There are other examples of so-called 're-emerging' diseases and, to make matters worse, some medicines and antibiotics are becoming less effective.
The Next 50 Years - Health for all in the 21st Century
A new global health policy to meet future health challenges has been developed by the World Health Organization in consultation with all its national and international partners.
Health for All (HFA) seeks to create the conditions where people have, as a fundamental human right, the opportunity to reach and maintain the highest attainable level of health. The vision of a renewed HFA policy builds on the WHO Constitution, the experience of the past and the needs of the future.
For two centuries it was known that smallpox could be prevented, but only in the 20th Century was a coalition organised by WHO able to do something definitive about it. With political will, commitment and a willingness to work together, there is no reason why this success cannot be continued.