The World Health Organisation or the WHO is back in the spotlight. There are still global reverberations from President Trump’s decision to suspend American financial contributions to the organisation. It all made me think about how little I know about what the WHO actually does and who works for it. So it’s time for a bit of basic research.
The WHO describes itself as the global guardian of public health. This short leaflet gives a brief summary of its aims. It is not a health provider but an advisory and enabling public health organisation. The staff of around 7,000 contains large ranks of medical doctors, epidemiologists and scientists.
Among other things, the WHO works to eradicate diseases around the world. This includes a massive effort to combat polio and other international scourges such as malaria and HIV.
The budget of the WHO is comparatively tiny, at just 2.5 billion USD or so a year. This is about the same as one big hospital in the United States. It’s dwarfed by the budget of the National Health Service in Britain, which this year is around £140 billion or 173 billion USD.
America, of course, is the biggest funder of the WHO. This report on the National Public Radio (NPR) website gives one of the most accessible analysis of the financial donors to the WHO and the possible impact of America’s suspension of funds.
This controversy over the WHO is far from over. It still has some influential supporters, including at yesterday’s virtual meeting of the G7. The other six nations apart from the United States are reported to have pledged their continued support for the multi-lateral and collaborative approach of the WHO.
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