On World Health Day: Celebrating 75 years of WHO

The World Health Organization marks its 75th anniversary this week with calls on all leaders to invest in strong health systems capable of delivering universal health coverage and emergency preparedness. It recommended increasing “health taxes” on tobacco, alcohol, added sugar, and fossil fuels to help pay for the delivery of universal health coverage. And it called for governments to close the projected gap of 10 million health workers by investing in education and job training.

“Investing in strong health systems is critical for a prosperous society,” said a WHO statement. “Increasing public financing for health and lowering out-of-pocket health costs saves lives.”

Established on April 7, 1948 – a date we now mark as World Health Day – at the suggestion of U.N. delegates from China and Brazil, the WHO’s goal has been “the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of health.”

The organization has its roots in a series of international sanitary conferences held starting in 1851 prompted by the steady march of cholera, which health authorities at the time called “the blue death,” across Europe. Later conferences over the following several decades focused on other fast-spreading and deadly infectious diseases including the bubonic plague and yellow fever.

Unlike its predecessors, the WHO is engaged in much more than limiting the spread of infectious diseases and coordinating global response to health emergencies. The organization sets guidelines for everything from childhood immunization standards and recommended treatment protocols to essential drug and equipment lists for facility administrators. It also shapes the international health research and policy agenda, provides technical support to countries, and establishes norms and standards on nearly every aspect of health.

To mark this year’s anniversary, Exemplars News highlights the organization’s impact and illustrates how the organization has accelerated progress across a range of critical health outcomes as documented by Exemplars in Global Health research.

Perhaps the organization’s most notable impact is its work leading the eradication of smallpox in 1977 – the only infectious disease to ever wiped from the face of the earth.

Building on this success against smallpox, the organization set its sights on two ambitious goals: eradicating both polio and malaria. Eliminating polio has required repeated rounds of polio vaccination campaigns in every country on the planet. In some geographies, such as in Peru and El Salvador, the WHO’s regional office, the Pan American Health Organization, had to negotiate cease fires to allow vaccination teams to reach every child.

These efforts have been a remarkable success. Today, polio has been eliminated from every country except Pakistan and Afghanistan (leaving aside vaccine-derived polio cases). And, in its efforts to eliminate malaria, the WHO's leadership has helped health leaders around the world achieve more modest gains including driving a 45% reduction in malaria mortality – saving millions of lives.

Throughout its history, the organization has also helped rally health leaders and researchers to cooperate during international crises and campaigns. The organization declared a public health emergency of international concern six times during its history – all within the last 20 years – in 2009, in response to the swine flu (HiNi) epidemic; in 2014, in response to a flare up of polio across five countries; in 2014 in response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa; in 2016, in response to the Zika virus outbreak in Latin America; and in 2019, in response to Ebola reaching the city of Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The organization last declared such an emergency in 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The threat of COVID-19 prompted the WHO to lead the largest-ever global response to a health crisis. The organization established the WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence to improve access to data and provide health leaders with better tools and insights for decision-making during pandemics. The WHO also published guidance documents for countries around the world that included guidelines on prevention, control, treatment, and testing. Once vaccines were available, the WHO, working with 1,600 technical and operational partners, planned and supported the delivery of the largest, most time sensitive, and complex vaccination drive in history.

The WHO has also led more regional coordination efforts. For example, in 2003, it led 115 national health services, academic institutions, technical institutions to contain the SARS epidemic. In 2017, it coordinated a 40-country coalition to end a yellow fever outbreak. It has also led repeated efforts to curtail a resurgence of measles outbreaks around the world.

The organization has also successfully led the effort to develop vaccines against Ebola, is leading the effort to test and deliver the first malaria vaccine and continues to lead global research on HIV.

From Nepal to Nigeria, Exemplars research captures some of the WHO’s lesser-known impact and leadership.

Exemplars research on under-five mortality demonstrated how the World Health Organization’s 1995 launch, along with UNICEF, of the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness (IMCI) has been adapted and adopted around the world and served to drive reductions to under-five mortality from Nepal to Rwanda.

Likewise, Exemplars in Global Health's community health worker research noted that the WHO’s guideline on health policy and system support to optimize community health worker programs has provided health leaders around the world with a comprehensive set of evidence-based recommendations and best practices on the design of CHW programs.

Exemplars in Global Health’s mass drug administration (MDA) research noted the pivotal research supported by the WHO outlining the three stages of MDA implementation.

Looking ahead to the next 75 years, the WHO has prioritized ensuring that all people, no matter where they live, have universal health care coverage – the theme for this year's World Health Day is Health for All. The organization has also laid out a roadmap for eliminating neglected tropical diseases and is responding to the growing threat of climate change.