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CONGRATULATIONS TO WHO
ON ITS 50TH ANNIVERSARY
Founded in 1948, the World
Health Organization celebrates its 50th Anniversary this year. The supreme health
authority worldwide, WHO's basic tenet is the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard
of health by all people as a fundamental human right. The MBC is privileged to be the WHO
Collaborating Centre for burns and fire disasters. A Policy for Health for all in the 21st
century has been drafted. A new Director-General took office as of July 1998, as we noted
in the last issue of the Annals.
The Role of WHO in the 21st Century
- Act as the world's health conscience.
- Develop global ethical and scientific
nomis, standards, and commitments.
- Develop international instruments that
advance global health and monitor their implementation.
- Establish active global surveillance and
alert systems.
- Foster the use of and innovation in science
and technology.
- Facilitate technical cooperation and
mobilize resources for the poorest countries and communities.
- Provide primarily normative support to
public health, emergency prevention and rehabilitation.
- Provide leadership to a global alliance to
address the determinants of health.
Dr Brundtland new
Director General of WHO
The Executive Board and
the Health Assembly of WHO nominated Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland for the post of
Director-General of the World Health Organization, who took office on 21 July 1998.
Dr Brundtland was born on 20 April 1939 in Oslo, Norway. She studied medicine at the
University of Oslo and obtained the M.D. degree in 1963. She received the degree of Master
of Public Health from Harvard University in 1965.
Nor to this high office, from 1965 to 1967 Dr Brundtland served as medical officer at the
Norwegian Directorate of Health. From 1968 to 1974 she was Assistant Medical Director at
the Oslo Board of Health, Department of School Services. In 1974 she was appointed
Minister of Environment, a position she held for five years. Appointed Prime Minister of
Norway in 1981, Dr Brundtland held this position three times. Altogether, she was Head of
Government for more than 10 years. Among her numerous international positions, Dr
Brundland chaired, starting in 1983, the World Commission of Environment and Development,
which coined the concept of "sustainable health development" at the Earth Summit
in Rio in 1992.
FIRST GLOBAL MEETING OF
WHO COLLABORATING CENTRES FOR EMERGENCY AND HUMANITARIAN ACTION
One of the multiple ways
through which the World Health Organization carries out its scientific work and social
mission is the mechanism of WHO Collaborating Centres. These scientific institutions are
part of an international collaborative network carrying out activities in support of the
Organization's programmes at all levels. As described in an earlier issue of the Annals'
the Mediterranean Club for Burns and Fire Disasters is such a Collaborating Centre in
the field of burns and fire disasters within WHO's division on Emergency and Humanitarian
Action (EHA). The strategy of EHA is hinged upon the principles of partnership,
coordination and collaboration in response to the needsof disaster prevention, emergency
preparedness, assessment, action, recovery and evaluation of aid.
The First Global Meeting of these Collaborating Centres took place on 7-8 April 1998, in
St Petersburg, Russia. All the problems revolving around the above-mentioned issues were
discussed in detail under the chairmanship of Professor Sergey Goncharov of the hosting
Centre and of Professor William Gunn of the MBC as Vice-Chairman. The forum helped outline
mechanisms and areas for more effective collaboration and set out priorities for research
and cooperative action. (Copies of the Report through WHO).
The MBC is proud to be among this select group of WHO Collaborating Centres and pledges to
bring its full support in the field of burns, fire emergencies and humanitarian
assistance.
WHO'S WORK IN DISASTER
SITUATIONS
The extensive activities
of the World Health Organization in 1997 are reported in detail in WHO/EHA/98,2: Emergency
and Humanitarian Action. Inter alia, the book has this to say about the MBC:
The WHO Collaborating Centre for Prevention and Treatment of Burns and Fire Disasters
"The Mediterranean Club for Burns and Fire Disasters" encourages the highest
standards of burn care and collaborates internationally to strengthen prevention,
treatment and rehabilitation in burns and fires. It emphasizes the synergies between burns
as a clinical, individual problem, and fires as a societal, disaster management problem,
resulting in the improved prevention and care of fire emergencies. Staff went on
humanitarian missions to Azerbaijan, Gambia, Poland, Moldova and Syria, to provide
technical advice and assistance; training courses were held in Egypt, Italy, Morocco, San
Marino, Syria and Romania; symposia and congresses in Austria, Egypt, Greece, Spain, Syria
and Saudi Arabia; a CD-Rom hypertext on burns was produced and distributed; several books
and guideline brochures were published and audio-visual aids in several languages for
health education and fire prevention promoted and distributed. The Centre acted as a
burn-specialist facility to other WHO Collaborating Centres, and it provided expert
advisory services to the Chairman of the United Nations Fund for Victims of Torture and
other intergovernmental and non-governmental institutions. It strengthened the burn and
fire expertise of national civil defence organizations.
REPRINTED COURTESY OF
HEALTH EMERGENCIES
Groundwork Laid on
Health as a Bridge for Peace
Project
The goal of the Health as
a Bridge for Peace project is to develop practical guidance on peacebuilding for health
professionals. From January to April of this year the German government has provided a
qualified legal trainee, specialized in international law and human rights, to work on the
project. The intern, Friederike Yschampa, began to select and compile relevant
international humanitarian and human rights laws and to apply them to the guidelines on
best practices for health workers in emergency and conflict situations. EHA has also
become more involved in areas of human rights and humanitarian law, both within WHO and
with other agencies. In addition, a technical working group represented by all of EHA's
units was set up to carry out the conceptual background work and to clarify the process
for drafting guidelines for the project.
It is also in this spirit that a group of MBC members and other concerned citizens
established the International Foundation for Humanitarian Medicine. For information
write to the Annals.
WHO Calls for Concerted
Public
Health Response to Anti-Personnel Mines
At the 101st Session of
the Executive Board, its members approved a Resolution declaring that the damage caused by
antipersonnel mines is a public health problem. The Board requested that the Director
General submit to the 5 1 st World Health Assembly a plan of action for a concerted public
health response to antipersonnel mines. This request comes after the signing of the
Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of
Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction, in Ottawa, in December 1997. This led to
the Ottawa Process 11, which has recognized the coordinating role of the UN System in
monitoring the implementation of the Treaty. This process will concentrate on demining and
providing humanitarian assistance to landmine victims.
The WHO plan of action was finalized after consultations with some of the Member States,
NG0s and the ICRC. Activities included in the plan will focus on five priority areas
endorsed by the Executive Board:
- surveillance and information
- prevention and awareness
- emergency and post-emergency care
- rehabilitation
- coordination within the United Nations
Within WHO, the Unit of
Violence and Injury Prevention (PVI) of the EHA will be responsible for the finalization
and subsequent implementation of the plan of action. PVI will ensure integration of the
plan within the Division's ongoing activities, particularly regarding surveillance and
information, in order to efficiently use existing resources.
Coordination within the UN System will be ensured through the UN Mine Action Service set
up by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. As the lead agency for coordination of
international work in public health, WHO will provide guidance for all public health
related matters. Moreover, in order to maximize efforts and to provide a concerted and
coherent response in assisting antipersonnel mine victims, collaboration with UNICEF, ICRC
and NG0s, at both headquarters and country levels, will be priority in project
implementation. To date, the country of Ireland has provided funding and an epidemiologist
has been seconded by the country of Belgium.
The MBC is proud to have co-sponsored the WADEM Resolution against Landmines, as published
in the last issue of the Annals, 11: 120, 1998.
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