Working for health.

The World Health Organization(WHO) is the directing and coordinating authority on international health within the United Nations' system. WHO experts produce health guidelines and standard, and help countries to address public health issues. WHO also supports and promotes health research. Through WHO, governments can jointly tackle global health problems and improve people's well being.


WHO in action : How do they get the job done?

• Country teams(147 countries)
  
• Regional teams(6 regions : The Americas, European, Eastern Mediterranean, African, South-East Asia, Western Pacific.)
  
• Headquarters team

• People : Last but not least, WHO is people. Over 8000 public health experts including doctors, epidemiologists, scientists, managers, administrators and other professionals from all over the world work for WHO in 147 country offices, six regional offices and at the headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
  

• Korea office : The Office of the WHO Representative The 2nd Government Unified Office Building - Room N°306 Central PO Box 540 Seoul

What can I do?

Enhancing global health security

A disease outbreak can cause a crisis for a country, for an entire region or even the world. Conflicts or natural disasters can also have repercussions that affect millions of people. WHO works through relief and restoration to save lives and reduce the impact of crises on people's health.

As many as two billion people around the world face health threats every day.

2 billion? 2,000,000,000!!! Shoot!!!
The total population of S.Korea is 48,050,000(2008).
2 billion is more than 20 times more than 48,050,000.

The number of people who face health threats every day is more than 41 more times than population of S.Korea's.
매일, 한국 총 인구의 41배가 넘는 사람들이 심각한 건강의 위협을 마주 대하고 있다.

People in more than 45 countries are currently experiencing emergencies as a result of natural disasters, economic crises, or conflict.
전 세계적으로 45개국 이상의 나라의 사람들이 자연 재해, 경제위기, 분쟁 등으로 인하여 고통받고있다.

• International Health Regulations : One critical too in the fight against the global spread of infectious disease is the international Health Regulations(IHR)
• Strategic Health Operations Centre : Using the latest technology, the centre is used during disease outbreaks and humanitarian emergencies to coordinate information and response between countries, WHO and other partners.

• Epidemic and Pandemic Alert and Response
• Health Action in Crises

Preventing Chronic Diseases.

Changes in diets, physical activity, and tobacco use in both rich and poor countries have dramatically increased the risks of chronic diseases such as heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes. More than half of all deaths worldwide each year - about 35 million out of 59 million - are caused by chronic disease.

35 million? 3,500,000!!!
The number of population of Seoul is 10,422,000. About the number of one third of Seoul citizens are dying because of chronic diseases throughout of the world.
전 세계적으로 서울시 인구의 1/3 이상의 사람들이 매년 만성질환으로 인하여 죽고있다.

New issues of today are Diet, Physical Activity and Tobacco Control.

• WHO's Global strategy on diet, physical activity and health is meant to help fight heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cancer and obesity-related conditions. The strategy encourages people to be more physically active and eat healthier diets.
• WHO Global Treaty on Tobacco Control : the first ever global health treaty negotiated by WHO.
  

• Chronic disease and health promotion : Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health.
• WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

what can I do?

Health at the Heart of the Millennium Development Goals.

At the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000, 191 countries set themselves the ambitious task of tackling poverty and ill-health and improving people's lives by 2015. Derived from the Millennium Declaration, these task are what became known as the Millennium Development Goals(MDGs). Health is at the heart of this agenda. Three of the eight goals - cutting child deaths, improving maternal health, and combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases - are directly about health. Better health is also key to the other goals, such as eradicating extreme poverty and hunger and achieving environmental sustainabilty.

• Goal 4. Cut children deaths : Almost 90% of all child deaths are attributable to just six conditions : diarrhoea, HIV/AIDS, malaria, measles, neonatal causes and pneumonia.(Close to 11 million children under-five die every year.)
• Goal 5. Improve maternal health : Most of them die because there is not enough skilled regular and emergency care.. In sub-Saharan Africa, 1 in 16 women have the risk of dying during pregnancy or childbirth over a lifetime. (More than half a million women die each year in pregnancy and childbirth.)
• Goal 6. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other diseases.

• HIV/AIDS : This year, five million people will be newly infected with HIV and more than three million people will die of HIV/AIDS-related illnesses. Today, just one in five people at risk of HIV has access to the information and tools they need to prevent itand millions are in urgent need of antiretroviral medicinen.

• Tuberculosis : The global TB epidemic causes nearly nine million case of disease and kills about two million people each year.

• Malaria : Malaria kills more than one million people a year - most of them children under five in Africa. In fact, on average a child in Africa dies every 30 seconds from a malaria infection caused by the bite of a mosquito.

What can I do?

Health Care For Everyone : People Working In Health Globally.

Today, there are 1.3 health worker for every 1000 people living in sub-Saharan Africa. To achieve the Millennium Development Goals, WHO recommands 2.5 health workers per 1000 people.

Europe : 10 health workers / 1000 people.
Sub-Saharan Africa : 1.3 / 1000

What can I do?

Reference
Working for health : an introduction to the World Health Organization.
(WHO Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data)