Day Three Morning: Wednesday, 6 April 2005

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Plenary session: How to restructure the World Health Organization?

It is not possible and would be pure folly to ignore the World Health Organization in any overall discussion of what will be found in the «New Frontiers of Healthcare », for, like it or not, the WHO is the voice of healthcare for the billions of poor human beings in the developing world. That does not preclude asking the following question: «Could the WHO have done better in the past and will it do better in the future?»

The elimination of the scourge of smallpox and the virtual disappearance of polio are accomplishments with which no one can take issue. The missed target of «Health for All by the Year 2000» remains a virtuous, if an unrealistic one. No man or woman could not share in the hopes of providing clean water and sanitation for the masses of humanity, and in combating AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Recently, the WHO has played an extremely positive role in defining and managing the global SARS epidemic and in alerting public health authorities to the dangers of new pandemics. The «Framework Convention on Tobacco» is a landmark accomplishment. Other recent forays of the WHO into the arena of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease are potentially very promising. It has done this despite the fact that its budget as a percentage of global health expenditures is extremely small.

So why does the WHO inflame such passions, both positive and negative? This plenary session will explore this question and suggest ways in which a balance might be brought about between advocates and opponents of the WHO.