Health Is A Global Public Good

At its 70th U.N. World Health Assembly in Geneva in late May, the World Health Organization (WHO) made history with the election of a new Director-General: Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus of Ethiopia – the first African to lead the organization. He now takes on the challenge of combating both infectious and noncommunicable diseases and other health challenges around the world. To succeed, he must convince the world to see health as a global public good—something in which we all have a stake. An announcement by the WHO on May 12 underscores this point. A new Ebola outbreak was declared in the Democratic Republic of Congo after three people died. According to the WHO, the outbreak is “in a remote and hard to reach area and appears to be geographically relatively limited.” It reminds us that the world is vulnerable to infectious disease epidemics like the 2014 Ebola crisis that killed more than 11,300 people, largely in three countries in West Africa. That earlier Ebola outbreak was contained, but with a seriously delayed and uncoordinated response. While we have learned much since then, each year there are many infectious outbreaks ‎that could become epidemics and need to be contained. And one of the most profound lessons from the 2014 outbreak was that we all have a stake in the public health, health care and prevention systems of other countries and in their capacity to respond effectively to infectious disease. Further, we all benefit when other countr...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news