WHO

The UN agency promoting health and serving the vulnerable so everyone can attain the highest level of health.

The World Health Organization is the specialized agency of the United Nations for public health, established on 7 April 1948 — a date now marked every year as World Health Day — when the WHO Constitution came into force. Its opening article defines health broadly as 'a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity'.

WHO is governed by the World Health Assembly of its 194 member states, which meets annually in Geneva to set policy, approve the budget and elect the Director-General. Its work covers three broad areas: normative — writing the standards, guidelines and classifications (such as the International Classification of Diseases) that national health systems rely on; operational — responding to disease outbreaks and health emergencies under the International Health Regulations; and technical cooperation with ministries of health in every region.

The organisation has led or coordinated some of the largest public-health achievements of the last century, including the eradication of smallpox in 1980 and the near-eradication of poliomyelitis, and it maintains the Essential Medicines List and the prequalification programme that most low- and middle-income countries use to procure quality-assured medicines and vaccines.