WHO Investigation: Key Dates in the History of the World Health Organization

1851

The year the first international sanitary conference was held. Twelve countries, including the UK and France, met in Paris with the goal of coordinating the response to diseases at the global level. Fourteen such conferences were held between 1851 and 1938, but little concrete progress on international cooperation was made. The world’s first intergovernmental health organization was the Pan American Sanitary Bureau, founded in 1902, which brought together states on the American continent (In 1949 the organization became a regional branch of the newly formed World Health Organization). Then came the creation of the Office of International Public Health in 1907, considered the forerunner to the World Health Organization. 

1945

The end of the Second World War led to the creation of the United Nations in October 1945. The following June, the first UN international sanitary conference took place in New York, during which the constitution of what would go on to become the World Health Organization was drafted. During this conference, an intermediary commission was formed to transfer tasks from the Office of International Public Health to the new body.

1948

On April 7th 1948, the World Health Organization, officially attached to the UN, saw the light of day. It had 61 members, as against 196 today. Each year on this date, World Health Day is celebrated.   

1958

A decade into its existence, the WHO, under the insistence of the Soviet Union, began developing a smallpox vaccine promotion programme. At the time the disease killed around 2 million people per year. The disease would be eradicated in 1980. It was the first time a disease had been eradicated due to human intervention. Today the vaccine is only in use in the military and by laboratories. It was not an easy victory, however, with the WHO changing strategy in 1967, implementing an intensified eradication program which consisted of isolating new cases and vaccinating all those in the vicinity of an outbreak.

1978

On September 12th the Declaration of Alma-Ata was signed in Kazakhstan. The text reaffirmed the main missions of the WHO, emphasizing the responsibilities of individuals and communities at all levels. It was the first international declaration underlining the importance of taking a primary health care approach as a way of achieving the goal of better health for all.

2005

On May 23rd the WHO published its International Health Regulations paper, updating existing guidelines. It entered into force two years later. Unlike previous iterations, which focused on a particular disease, such as yellow fever or cholera, this text encompassed all human pathologies. The goal of the new regulations was to streamline approaches to disease prevention in an ever more globalized world.

2007

The arrival of Chinese doctor Margaret Chan at the head of the WHO in 2007 saw the organization embark on a strategy of gaining influence in the Middle Kingdom. Chan would remain director-general for ten years. With ties to Beijing, she was able to foster the renaissance of Chinese traditional medicine.
Chan’s first mandate was marked by the H1N1 outbreak in 2009, during which her advice caused controversy, as governments stockpiled vaccines that were, in the end, not needed. Although the WHO stuck to a ‘better safe than sorry’ line, a report commissioned by the European Parliment into the organization’s conduct during H1N1, nevertheless accused it of having exaggerated the swine flu threat ‘under pressure from laboratories’. To compound the reputational damage from the swine flu pandemic, the official H1N1 death toll of 18,318 was called into question by a 2012 Lancet report which claimed that, actually, the outbreak had killed almost 280,000.

2020

A month and a half after announcing an international state of emergency, the WHO declared the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic on March 12th. By this stage, more than 100 countries had already  reported cases of the coronavirus on their territory. The WHO’s handling of the crisis was criticised by governments around the world, with Donald Trump accusing it of having contributed to the speed with which the virus spread around the world.