WHO Director-General election: a more connected WHO.

摘要

The health status of populations varies greatly between and within countries. Countries with very low incomes have a reducing life expectancy at birth and continued rates of high mortality in children and women. In over 50 countries, almost a half of the world's population, the daily per capita income is less than USdollar3. In many such countries, health services are insufficiently developed: people have little access to health care and have to spend their limited income on drugs and medical services. Often the drugs they can afford are of poor quality or not available.Limited health resources must be used with greater efficiency and more equitably by realistic joint planning byall partners, especially non-governmental organisations, to contribute to the implementation of a single national plan and to minimise duplication of effort and maximise effect.While Director of WHO's Technical Division responsible for the control of tropical diseases worldwide, global fundraising was high on my agenda. I negotiated with SmithKline Beecham to provide and deliver albendazole to 125 countries free of charge, to break the transmission cycle of filiariasis in 20% of the world's affected population. There is no reason why this exarnple of support from industry to populations in need could not be replicated.