Global health between the institutional role and the problem of health justice
The World Health Organization, known by its abbreviation (OMS), is the authority entrusted with directing work in the field Public healthAnd its coordination within the framework of the United Nations, in other words, it is the United Nations agency responsible for health. But, has the organization succeeded in supporting the health rights of the poor in the Third World, or has its work focused only in rich, white countries, especially in light of the most prominent health pandemic facing the world as a result of the repercussions of the new Corona virus? To begin with, it includes World Health Organization 194 Member States, the organization works around the world, to promote the highest attainable standard of health for all people, without regard to race, religion, gender, political belief, economic or social status. The organization’s mission is to promote health, keep the world safe and serve the vulnerable. Access to adequate and affordable health care is a human right, and universal health care is a basic principle that guides the work of the Organization.
Establishment, institutional structure, and global spread
The World Health Organization was established on April 7, 1948. It is one of the specialized agencies of the United Nations. Its decisions are taken by the World Health Assembly, which is considered the highest body in the organization. Among its goals are to follow up on health issues and provide technical support to member countries. It has an Executive Council consisting of 34 members. Its headquarters is in Geneva, Switzerland, in addition to six regional offices around the world, which are: 1- The Regional Office for Africa, headquartered in Brazzaville in the Congo. 2- The Regional Office for the Americas, headquartered in Washington. 3- The Regional Office for Southeast Asia, headquartered in New Delhi, India. 4- The Regional Office for Europe, headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark. 5- The Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, headquartered in Cairo, Egypt. 6- The Western Pacific Regional Office, headquartered in Manila in the Philippines.
Public health is a key priority for the Organization
The organization also includes 150 country offices and employs about seven thousand doctors, specialists and scientific experts in management sciences, economics, and emergency relief. The organization brings together elite experts in the field of health from all over the world to produce reference materials on global health issues and provide recommendations to improve the health of all people. The World Health Organization consists of the World Health Assembly, Member States and the Secretariat. By 2023, the organization aims to achieve its three billion goals, which include ensuring that one billion people benefit from universal health coverage, one billion people enjoy greater health and well-being, and one billion people are better protected from health emergencies. At least half of the world’s population lacks basic health services, and medical expenses, which people pay out of their own money, push about 100 million people into poverty every year.
Structure and management
The 194 member states exercise presidential authority in the organization through the World Health Assembly. This assembly consists of delegates from member states. The Assembly approves the organization’s programme, its budget for the following biennium, and decides on the most important public policy issues. The Society holds an annual meeting in Geneva in May of each year. It has an Executive Council consisting of 34 members, who are elected for a three-year term. The Council is responsible for implementing the decisions and policies of the Health Assembly. The Executive Council holds its meetings in January annually, to adopt decisions that are referred to the Health Assembly, with a second, shorter meeting being held in May, shortly after the conclusion of the Health Assembly, to consider more administrative matters.
Areas of work of the organization
The organization is interested in encouraging medical research, proposes concluding agreements in global health affairs, monitors the outbreak of communicable diseases, such as smallpox, plague, and other dangerous epidemics, and works to combat them. It also works to provide health protection for motherhood and childhood, raise the level of mental and psychological health, and spread awareness in order to protect drinking water from pollution. The participating countries exchange experiences, eliminate many chronic and deadly diseases, and also hold many training workshops aimed at developing health services.
Big ambitions
The Constitution of the World Health Organization says that its purpose is to provide the best possible state of health for all peoples to date. To achieve this goal, a campaign was launched in 1998, called “Health for All in the 21st Century”, seeking to bring health to a level that allows all people to enjoy quality health care. The organization defines health as “complete physical, mental and social well-being.” This definition obligates the organization to work to achieve this condition, both individuals and groups. To meet their needs, desires, hopes and reality, perceive their environment and deal with change.
Extensive activities
The World Health Organization sponsors programs for the prevention and treatment of diseases, in addition to coordinating global efforts to monitor the emergence of infectious diseases, such as SARS, colds, and AIDS. The organization also supports the development and distribution of safe and effective vaccines (vaccinations), pharmaceutical reagents, and medicines. After more than two decades of combating smallpox, the organization announced in 1980 that it had been able to eradicate the disease. This is the first disease to be eradicated through human effort. The organization seeks to eradicate polio in the next few years. The organization also aims to promote health matters other than combating diseases, including encouraging the consumption of vegetables and fruits, and combating the spread of smoking in the world. It has issued a report on the most important health risks globally, in which smoking is one of the ten most important health risks. Among the organization’s successes is its work in developing a vaccine for influenza. The organization conducts many researches, including on the effect of electromagnetic fields (cell phones) on health. Some of the organizations’ research causes controversy over its results. Tobacco companies have discussed tobacco research, and sugar industry companies are currently discussing a technical report that recommended that the percentage of sugar not exceed 10% of healthy food.
Poor vaccine
However, in light of the Corona pandemic, the gap between the production of vaccines and obtaining them led to calls for emergency measures to be taken, allowing poor countries to manufacture and import types of vaccine that do not have intellectual property rights, as India and South Africa were the first to call on the organization to lift intellectual property protection restrictions on these medicines, as they did with special medicines to combat the virus that causes immunodeficiency (AIDS), in a step that played a prominent role in saving the lives of millions in Africa. However, the United States, the European Union, and Britain, member states of the World Trade Organization, opposed this proposal, considering that the development of vaccines would not have occurred “without the patent.” However, this position prompted the World Health Organization and humanitarian relief organizations, which support the call – and described it as a “vaccine for the poor” – to sound the alarm, as if the major powers did not respond to this request, “nine out of every ten people, in many developing countries, will not receive the anti-Corona vaccine this year.”
