Bashing the World Health Organization seems like a popular thing for some folks to do these days.
Which folks?
Mostly the bashing is coming from folks who don’t know what they are talking about…
Who Wants to Defund the World Health Organization?
For one thing, not only did the World Health Organization issue warnings about COVID-19 in early January, they have been warning about global pandemics for some time.
“Few doubt that major epidemics and pandemics will strike again and few would argue that the world is adequately prepared. Since the 2013–2016 Ebola virus disease outbreak in western Africa, the United States National Academy of Medicine and several other groups have pointed to gaps, and the need for greater investment, in preparation against epidemics and pandemics, of Ebola virus disease and other infectious diseases.”
Fan et al on Pandemic risk: how large are the expected losses?
And over and over, they concluded that “for the global good,” we should all make sure we are prepared for the next pandemic.
That’s why they created the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board in 2017 and worked to prepare the world for the next pandemic, even as their budget kept getting cut and they found that “the vast majority of countries currently have low or moderate levels of national preparedness.”
Unfortunately, even as some countries did listen, their work was eventually undone…
“The investments made after the 2014 Ebola crisis have been slashed in recent proposed federal budgets from the Centers for Disease Control, the agency that works to stop deadly diseases in their tracks, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, which responds to international disasters, including the Ebola outbreak. Moreover, Timothy Ziemer, the top White House official in charge of pandemic preparedness, has left his job, and the biosecurity office he ran was summarily disbanded.”
The Next Pandemic Will Be Arriving Shortly
Of course, the WHO doesn’t just work on pandemics.
“WHO began when our Constitution came into force on 7 April 1948 – a date we now celebrate every year as World Health Day. We are now more than 7000 people from more than 150 countries working in 150 country offices, in 6 regional offices and at our headquarters in Geneva.”
Who we are
Remember, they do a lot to keep the world safe, with programs covering everything from aging and air pollution to polio eradication and Zika control.
“WHO has developed its first ever investment case with an ask of US$ 14.14 billion for 2019-2023. This is the amount WHO needs to deliver on its five-year strategy and its ambitious triple billion target: WHO will work to provide a billion more people with universal health coverage, protect a billion more people from health emergencies and bring a further billion people better health and well-being.”
Invest in WHO to invest in Health for All
And that’s why, now more than ever, we should be investing more money in the World Health Organization and other public health organizations.
Or we can just wait and hope we can handle the next public health crisis that hits us…
More on the World Health Organization
- The Second COVID-19 Wave Might Not Be COVID-19
- The Value and Cost Savings of Getting Vaccinated
- Why Haven’t We Eradicated Measles Already?
- What Happens if We Stop Using Oral Polio Vaccines?
- Global Vaccine Side Effect Reporting Systems
- How To Counter Vaccine Hesitancy
- More Questions to Help You Become a Vaccine Skeptic
- ‘We Alerted The World’ To Coronavirus On Jan. 5, WHO Says In Response To U.S.
- AMA statement on halting World Health Organization funding
- Two months in the dark: The increasingly damning timeline of Trump’s coronavirus response
- COVID-19 — a timeline of the coronavirus outbreak
- ‘We have it totally under control.’ A timeline of President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic
- WHO – Guiding principles for immunization activities during the COVID-19 pandemic
- WHO – Who we are
- WHO – Preparing for pandemics
- WHO – Pandemic risk: how large are the expected losses?
- WHO – Preparedness for a High-Impact Respiratory Pathogen Pandemic
- WHO – Push needed for pandemic planning
- WHO – Invest in WHO to invest in Health for All
- WHO – Saving lives, spending less: a strategic response to noncommunicable diseases
- WHO – Investment for health and well-being: a review of the social return on investment from public health policies to support implementing the Sustainable Development Goals by building on Health 2020 (2017)
- WHO – Using economic evidence to help make the case for investing in health promotionand disease prevention
- Global Preparedness Monitoring Board
- National Network of Public Health Institutes
- Coronavirus: DOD Response Timeline
- Before Trump’s inauguration, a warning: ‘The worst influenza pandemic since 1918’
- The Government Has Failed on Coronavirus, but There Is Still Time
- America’s national security machine stares down a viral threat
- Pandemic Disease Is a Threat to National Security
- The Next Pandemic Will Be Arriving Shortly
- Elimination Of NSC Global Health Security Office Part Of National Security Adviser Bolton’s Plans To Streamline Council
- COVID-19 Perspectives on the global response to the 2019 novel coronavirus
- The WHO Vaccine Safety Summit – from someone who was actually there
- Vaccine safety in the next decade: Why we need new modes of trust building?
Last Updated on April 15, 2020