This month the Health Council of Canada published the 2012 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey of Primary Care Doctors. This informative study is based on a survey of more than 2,000 primary health care workers across the country.

It focuses on how front liners perceive the system (Does it require minor or major change? Do patients get too much or too little care? Can they get diagnostic tests when they need them?) and how they themselves operate (Do they make home visits? Prescribe electronically? Monitor their own performance against targets?) It provides a fascinating insight not just into how we are doing, but also into how we are doing relative to other countries. Sadly, the answer is "not that well."

Canada's health system sits more or less in the middle of the pack on physicians' perceptions of how much change is required: 40 per cent of respondents say the system needs "only minor changes" and our doctors themselves are happy (82 per cent say they are satisfied or very satisfied with practising medicine).

But does their happiness come at the expense of patient care? The disparity between physician satisfaction and the measures in the survey that would seem to translate directly into patient satisfaction, is telling.

As the report notes: "Compared to physicians in nine other countries, Canadian primary care physicians are the least likely to routinely provide same-day or next-day appointments (47 per cent). They are also among the least likely to make home visits (58 per cent) or have after-hours arrangements so that patients can see a doctor or nurse without going to a hospital emergency department (46 per cent)." But doctors themselves may be oblivious to this, because Canadian primary care physicians are also among the least likely to work in practices that regularly review clinical performance against targets (41 per cent average, varying between 62 per cent for B.C. and 19 per cent for Quebec).

Overall, then, this is not an uplifting survey. It finds that "In overall national performance, Canada shows no relative improvement in any areas of access to care ... since 2006."

Canadians are always wont to compare our system to the U.S. This makes sense, but only in geographic terms. There are numerous examples of mixed public-private systems around the world that exhibit substantially greater cost effectiveness and better medical outcomes than our own. None is perfect and all systems struggle to rein in costs, but should we not be learning from elsewhere? And isn't the Health Council survey a good place to start identifying our deficiencies?

At Canada 2020, we have been gathering information on an alternative public-private hybrid model being tested in the U.K. (a country in which 95 per cent of primary care workers say their patients can get after-hours service outside a hospital emergency department and where 96 per cent of physicians regularly review clinical performance against targets).

In 2012, The Circle Partnership was awarded a 10-year contract to manage a publicly funded, full-service hospital in Huntingdonshire. The National Health Service continues to employ most of the hospital's staff. Health care remains free and universal at the point of delivery, but private-sector incentives have been introduced. Doctors, nurses, and other Circle employees collectively own 49.9 per cent of the company, while the rest is owned by a group of hedge and venture capital funds.

The model is relatively simple: if efficiencies by Circle yield a surplus at Hinching-brooke Hospital, profits will be shared by the hospital, the NHS, and Circle. If the hospital continues to post a deficit under Circle's management, Circle will earn nothing and has agreed in its contract to be responsible for the first $8 million of fresh debt.

It is too early to judge Circle's success. On the one hand, the hospital's emergency room, which regularly failed to meet targets in the past, was ranked first of 46 hospitals in eastern England after six months under Circle's administration. Monthly targets for cancer treatment, which had last been met in June 2010, were being fulfilled every month and the length of a patient's stay after hip or knee surgery fell from an average of 5.6 days to 2.6 days, allowing for faster turnaround of rooms. On the other hand, Circle has yet to demonstrate its ability to keep costs under control (although it is early days yet). The hospital's losses reached $6.5 million within eight months, just over double the $3 million of debt that Circle had predicted for the hospital by that point.

Here in Canada, no legislation prevents the introduction of private health care administration. What's more, our current system should lend itself well to the transition because Canadian primary-care doctors are already paid under a fee-for-service system, rather than earning a fixed salary.

It seems, though, that the largest roadblock to introducing a similar model to Canada lies in public resistance to change. Opposition to any linkage between the private sector and health care remains strong (back to that American comparison problem) and a number of Canadian facilities that have incorporated private incentives have been closed, despite their success (for example the Canadian Radiation Oncology Services clinic in Ontario and a private clinic at Montreal's Sacré-Coeur Hospital).

But aren't we Canadians open-minded people? Surely we can open our minds to alternative ways to deliver universally accessible publicly funded health services. The Circle model may not be the perfect solution, but it is well worth watching from our shores if only for the reason that health care improves most when the medical community does what it does best: experiments.

Diana Carney is vice-president of research at Canada 2020, an independent, progressive think-tank. Arianne Charlebois is a research intern with Canada 2020.

(source: www.faceoff.com)

Representatives from Ministries of Finance and Health, national health insurance authorities and development partners, as well as experts and practitioners from Asia and Africa are to meet in South Africa next month at a forum on the role of health insurance in achieving universal health coverage and social health protection.

The forum, entitled "Achieving Universal Coverage Through Health Financing Reform", is organized by the African Development Bank (AfDB), in collaboration with the German International Cooperation (GTZ), the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), and in close consultation with the Government of the Republic of South Africa.

The forum, which takes place from March 11-14, 2013 in Centurion, South Africa, is expected to attract an estimated 60 representatives from 16 African and four Asian countries. It aims to facilitate knowledge exchange between African and Asian countries on building coherent and sustainable health financing systems (prepayment, pooling and strategic spending) that are geared to achieving universal health coverage.

Focusing on the Southern African region, the forum will explore in particular the role of extending coverage of pooled financing mechanisms (often under the label of "health insurance"), for moving closer to universal health coverage. It will discuss key aspects, the potential as well as the challenges and limitations of different approaches to revenue contribution, pooling, and purchasing in closing healthcare coverage gaps.

At the July 2012 Conference on Value for Money Sustainability and Accountability, African Ministers of Finance and Health acknowledged that millions of Africans suffer severe economic consequences due to the need to pay for out-of-pocket healthcare. The financial strains on people due to out-of-pocket spending aggravate inequities and impede sustainable social and economic development. Furthermore, millions more do not even seek the care they need due to the high costs of accessing and using it.

The financial risks that out-of-pocket expenditure presents can be diminished through prepayment, pooling and strategic spending of resources. A number of countries in Sub-Saharan Africa are currently reforming their national health financing systems with a view to achieving universal health coverage and social protection for all.

The main outcome of the exchange will be a set of recommendations for country health financing reform as well as the identification of where development partners can support southern African countries in their efforts towards universal health coverage.

More South-South exchanges such as this one are expected as countries continue to collaborate and share experiences.

(source: allafrica.com)

29 January 2013 – The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) today warned that the world is at risk of a repeat of the disastrous bird flu outbreak seen six years ago unless countries step up global health measures to monitor and control this and other dangerous animal diseases.

"The continuing international economic downturn means less money is available for prevention of H5N1 bird flu and other threats of animal origin. This is not only true for international organizations but also countries themselves," said FAO Chief Veterinary Officer Juan Lubroth.

"Even though everyone knows that prevention is better than cure, I am worried because in the current climate governments are unable to keep up their guard."

Since 2003, the H5N1 Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza virus has killed or forced the culling of more than 400 million domestic poultry and caused an estimated $20 billion in economic damage. Although it does not infect humans often, about 60 per cent of those infected with the virus die. Between 2003 and 2011, it infected over 500 people and killed more than 300, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Large reservoirs of the H5N1 virus still exist in some countries in Asia and the Middle East, in which the disease has become endemic. Without adequate controls, it could easily spread as it did in 2006, when 63 countries were infected, FAO said in a news release.

"I see inaction in the face of very real threats to the health of animals and people," Mr. Lubroth said, adding that in spite of budget restrictions, countries must invest in preventing the disease to avoid further economic damages.

Appropriate measures can completely eliminate H5N1 from the poultry sector. Domestic poultry are now virus-free in most of the places infected in 2006, including Turkey, Hong Kong, Thailand and Nigeria. In addition, substantial headway has been made against bird flu in Indonesia, after many years of work and international financial commitment.

FAO warned that another growing threat is Peste des Petits Ruminants, or PPR, a highly contagious disease that can decimate flocks of sheep and goats.

"It is currently expanding in sub-Saharan Africa – causing havoc in the Democratic Republic of Congo among other countries – and is just starting to spill over into southern Africa," Mr. Lubroth said. "The irony is that a perfectly good vaccine exists for PPR, but few people are using it."

Some of the reasons for not using the vaccine include tight finances, lack of political will, and poor planning and coordination. To address these, governments must invest in prevention means such as improving hygiene practices, market and border controls, and health security in farms and markets. Countries must also equip laboratories, train staff to diagnose the disease and respond to outbreaks, and organize efficient extension services to serve farmers' needs.

"We need to come together to find ways to ensure the safety of the global food chain," Mr. Lubroth said. "The costs – and the dangers – of not acting are just too high."

(source: www.un.org)

IN 1978, 134 countries, 67 international organizations and many non-governmental organizations participated in an international conference at Alma-Ata, now Almaty, in Kazakhstan, and came up with the Declaration of Alma-Ata.

The declaration reaffirmed the World Health Organization (WHO) definition of health—a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. This argued that attainment of the highest possible level of health requires the action of socioeconomic sectors, in addition to the health sector.

The Alma-Ata declaration deemed inequity as unacceptable and health as a human right, thus called for "Health for All." From a limited perspective of service delivery—a world only of doctors and hospitals—health was now viewed as an outcome borne out of systematic actions from several actors and stakeholders. Just as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a health system to ensure health for all.

The WHO defines a health system to consist of all organizations, people and actions whose primary intent is to promote, restore or maintain health. This includes efforts to influence socioeconomic determinants of health, as well as more direct health-improving activities. It is more than just public hospitals and health-care facilities delivering personal health services. It includes mothers taking care of their sick children, indigenous peoples seeking treatment from traditional healers, and private hospitals and health-care professionals, private and government health-insurance organizations. It includes the Department of Social Welfare and Development making vaccinations and facility-based deliveries as conditions for cash transfers and the Department of Education promoting oral hygiene and hand washing.

The World Bank (WB) states that individuals and organizations, whether public or private, who are regulators, recipients, purchasers, or providers of services and supplies, are all parts of the health system. These many parts are always inter-connected by the key functions of the health system, which are oversight of the whole health system, health-service provision and promotion, health financing, and management of health-related resources, such as pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and health information.

The attainment of health for all, or universal health coverage, thus requires transformation of all the parts of the health system. The WHO explains this as working on the six building blocks, which are as follows: improving health-service delivery; ensuring responsive health work force; setting up functional health-information systems; expanding access to essential medicines; appropriate health financing; and instituting strong leadership and governance.

Similarly, the WB talks about health-system control knobs, and that transformation of health systems would entail finding the right balance of up to where to move each of the control knobs. It means actions on the five control knobs of organization, financing, provider payment, regulation and persuasion.

Both frameworks are consistent with each other, as both challenges countries to do systematic reforms and not just piecemeal, silo-based and limited changes. Until countries start fully realizing that health system matters, the reforms will not be transformational.

In the next months, I will be describing how the Philippines and other countries in Southeast and East Asia and probably the rest of the world are reforming their respective health systems. We will look into how the Philippines and other countries are working to strengthen the building blocks and to find the appropriate mix of the control knobs.

We will look into where we are as to addressing the traditional public-health diseases of tuberculosis and malaria and the other emerging disease, such as dengue and HIV/AIDS. But beyond the usual number of cases, we will assess how various health-system interventions have contributed (or not) to addressing these public-health problems.

We will explore the role of the private sector—from hospitals to ambulatory health facilities, private physicians, pharmaceutical companies and health maintenance organizations in the reforms. We will delve into the role of development partners, bilateral and multilateral agencies in the reforms. We will discuss how public financing, be it from budget or health insurance, is changing behaviors and practices; look into how primary and preventive care and devolution are ensuring access and affordability of services; and many other stories of health system reforms.

Alma Ata correctly diagnosed that health for all needs changes from all of us. And for us to attain the dream of "Health for All," we need all parts of the health system to be transformed.

(source: businessmirror.com.ph)

Britain's National Health Service (NHS) is suffering death by a thousand cuts and faces wholesale privatisation.

The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition has demanded a £20 billion cut by 2015 from an overall budget of £108 billion—a reduction that is impossible without slashing essential life-saving services.

So far, only £6 billion in cuts have been made—mostly one-off savings. Much worse is to follow. But staff levels are already being cut by as much as 20 percent and new labour contracts are being imposed with lower wages and higher workloads.

Accident and Emergency departments (over 30 nationally), children's units and other wards and facilities are closing—justified by claims that services and medical procedures can be better provided in specialised units. There are no guarantees that such specialised units will not be swamped by demand, or that lives will not be lost due to the distances involved. Yet the medical director of the NHS, Sir Bruce Keogh, dismisses broad opposition to these changes as pressure to "inhibit excellence" and "perpetuate mediocrity."

The Health and Social Care Act allows private companies to provide health care under the auspices of the NHS and comes in to effect in April 2013. However, this will only escalate a process already underway. The NHS is being bled dry by innumerable private corporations that are fleecing the taxpayer while care is either rationed or denied outright to the chronically ill and the most vulnerable members of society.

On November 13, 2011, Circle Health became the first private corporation to run an NHS hospital. In October 2012, a Freedom of Information request found that in one week alone contracts were signed taking more than 400 community services out of the NHS, including ambulance services, diagnostic testing, podiatry and adult hearing.

Doctors warned that the NHS was being "atomised", with over 100 health care firms now providing basic care under Any Qualified Provider rules. Some private companies already earn up to £200 million a year each from NHS-funded work.

Sixty NHS Trusts face being declared bankrupt in the next four years, threatening hospitals with "rationalisation" or closure. To fend off this threat, trusts must cut budgets and ration or deny treatments declared to be "of limited clinical value". Nearly one in five hip replacements and hernia repairs are already handled by private companies. Soon they will have to be paid for.

Cold hard cash is a major factor in the drive to first gut and then privatise the NHS. It will open up massive revenue streams for private medicine, which previously made up just 8 percent of the health sector and was for decades almost entirely parasitic—a form of glorified queue-jumping for the better-off, using NHS taxpayer-funded facilities and doctors trained at public expense.

The NHS is hated by the ruling class as a symbol of everything they were forced to grant the working class in Britain in the post-war period—the "cradle to grave" welfare reforms—in order to placate demands for social change.

It is even now an object of hatred for the political and business elite in the United States, where bitter denunciations of "socialised medicine" conceal the fact that the NHS is still, thanks to being free at the point of delivery and based on clinical need and not the ability to pay, one of the best in the world for the standard of care provided, while America is one of the worst. This is despite spending nearly £5,000 per capita in the US, compared with just over £2,000 in the UK.

These figures provide some indication of the quality of health care that could be provided under a truly socialist health system, integrated into a socialist economy in which the corporations and banks were publicly owned and democratically controlled.

Working people depend on the NHS for their lives and health and want to fight for it. But, as with all fundamental tasks workers face—the defence of jobs, wages, essential services and benefits—this desire is thwarted at every turn by the trade unions and parties once associated with such struggles.

The Labour Party presided over the creation of the NHS in 1948, but spent 13 years in office from 1997 on undermining it. Privatisation by stealth first began in 1989 with the introduction of the "internal market" by Margaret Thatcher. However, it was the last Labour government that encouraged outsourcing of medical services and used the Private Finance Initiative to build hospitals that cost multiple times their initial outlay, saddling these institutions with massive debts for facilities that often had up to 28 percent fewer beds. Labour is now seeking to pose once again as the friend of the NHS, but this is a worthless fraud.

As for the trade unions, none of them has lifted a finger in defence of jobs and services—confining workers to signing petitions, writing letters to MPs, and participating in campaigns to keep open this or that hospital or unit so that the axe falls somewhere else.

How could it be otherwise? The universal experience of workers the world over is that social democratic parties have become indistinguishable from their conservative counterparts, while the trade unions stifle and betray any and all expressions of resistance to government austerity measures, corporate downsizing and speed-up.

In Greece, the social democratic PSAOK and the Democratic Left sit in government with the conservative New Democracy, presiding over austerity measures that include the near-total collapse of public health care.

The Socialist Equality Party in the UK has initiated the NHS FightBack Campaign, based upon the independent political mobilisation of the working class. The SEP campaign insists:

"The defence of health care and every other basic social right can be taken forward only through a break from the unions and the Labour Party. Action committees must be formed by patients, hospital staff and the workers and youth whose lives and health are being jeopardised. The problem is not a lack of funds or resources, but the monopoly of wealth by the super-rich. This monopoly can be broken only by a mass movement of the working class to bring down the coalition government and replace it by a workers' government based on socialist policies.

"Such a government would carry through a radical redistribution of wealth in favour of working people, which would include ending the obscenity of medicine-for-profit and restoring the health service as a free, high quality state-run facility for all."

This is the basic perspective upon which every fight by the working class in every country must now proceed.

(source: www.wsws.org)

International scientists have declared an end to a moratorium on research into mutant forms of the deadly H5N1 bird flu. Since influenza viruses are constantly changing, research is crucial, WHO's Gregory Härtl told DW.

DW: There has been this open letter in the journal Science and Nature that international scientists are going to lift their voluntary moratorium on certain research. First of all, what's the reaction from the World Health Organization (WHO)? Is this a good or a bad thing?

Gregory Härtl: Well, certainly it's to be expected. We convened a meeting with Dr Fouchier and Dr Kawaoka and others directly involved in this research a year ago, right at the time when this moratorium was announced. And the fact that they have desisted from doing any research on H5N1 for a year now - so twice as long as originally envisaged - has given the influenza and virology world a lot of time to sit back and look at what needs to be done in order to do this research in a surer environment and to do things that can help raise confidence all around.

The moratorium was imposed because of fears that terrorists could get access to what was being researched. Is there any proof to say that the moratorium has worked in that sense - that it's stopped those sorts of things happening?

What basically is at issue here is understanding the benefits and risks of what we call dual-use research. So obviously with something like H5N1 and working to make it more transmissible among mammals, which is what these two studies did, it helps us understand much better how the virus might become more transmissible. And we can maybe develop a better vaccine or we can see markers developing in the environment when we do our studies that will help us to take precautionary and preventative actions beforehand.

Certainly, yes, in the wrong hands, the fear was that this could have been used as a terrorist instrument and this is why a lot of people were looking at it. In the interim there's been a lot of work done on developing laboratory guidelines. There's also been a lot of discussion about what's happened, and the year has given us a lot of breathing space. And it's to be expected that the researchers would start the research again and from a public health point of view it's necessary that they do this.

This open letter is signed by scientists around the world - the US, China, Japan, the UK, the Netherlands, Canada, Hong Kong, Italy and Germany - is there an issue at stake here in terms of the security in laboratories? Has that issue been resolved?

There are guidelines by WHO on how to make laboratories secure and what constitutes a secure laboratory. These regulations are implemented nationally, not by WHO.

But are we seeing cases where those guidelines are not being adhered to? Let's just take the European countries for now.

I would say not - the guidelines certainly would be stuck to.

Foto

So European laboratories are secure. And what we're hearing is that now with the moratorium lifted, we can expect some very creative experiments and creative research. What do you think we can expect?

Let's be realistic here. First of all, laboratory security is very good, it has always been very good. And there will not be anything done overnight which radically changes the way a virus works, so be reasonable.

Be reasonable? But still, what can we expect? There is an expectation still that it's very likely that flu pandemics will break out and that we are still at risk and we still do not have an entirely steadfast resolution for this issue, given that it does always mutate and change. So what would be fair to expect?

What would be fair to expect in Europe is that there are very secure laboratories from which the risk would be extremely small that any virus would escape or get out. So from that point of view laboratory security in Europe is very high. From the point of view of doing research on influenza viruses, it is extremely important to do this research from a public health point of view, because influenza viruses do constantly mutate and we need to know how they mutate and in what way those mutations might make these viruses more transmissible between humans.

Gregory Härtl is with the Director-General's office at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva.

(source: www.dw.de)

22 JANUARY 2013 | GENEVA - The WHO Executive Board, currently holding its 132nd session in Geneva, has appointed Dr Carissa Etienne as the new Regional Director for WHO's Americas Region (WHO/AMRO), following her nomination by the Regional Committee for the Americas in September 2012. Dr Etienne will take up her appointment for a five-year term on 1 February 2013, succeeding Dr Mirta Roses Periago of Argentina.

"I believe strongly that good health is rooted in equity, universality, solidarity and inclusiveness," said Dr Etienne in her acceptance speech. "I have learned that Universal Health Coverage is not only the best way to improve the health of every citizen in a country – but that it is entirely feasible."

Dr Etienne, from Dominica, holds degrees in medicine and surgery from the University of the West Indies as well as a master's in community health and an honorary diploma in public health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

In her native country she served twice as Chief Medical Officer (in 2000-2002 and 1995-1996), Director of Primary Health Care Services, Disaster Coordinator, and National Epidemiologist in the Ministry of Health. She also served as Coordinator of the National AIDS Programme, Chairperson of the National AIDS Committee, and Medical Director of the Princess Margaret Hospital, and was an Associate Professor at the Ross University School of Medicine.

From 2003-2008, Dr Etienne served as Assistant Director of the Pan American Health Organization, WHO's Regional Office for the Americas, and from 2008-2012 she was Assistant Director-General, Health Systems and Services, at WHO headquarters in Geneva.

In Geneva, Dr Etienne led efforts to renew primary health care (PHC) at the global level and to strengthen health systems based on PHC, promoting integration and improved functioning of health systems. She has also promoted policy directions to reduce health inequalities and advance health for all through universal coverage, people-centred care, the access to safe and effective medical products and technology, the integration of health into broader public policies, and inclusive and participatory health leadership.

The Regional Office for the Americas comprises 38 Member States stretching from the Arctic to the Tierra del Fuego: Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Brazil, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Netherlands, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts and Nevis, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, United Kingdom, United States of America, Uruguay and Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic of). In addition, Puerto Rico is an Associate Member, while Spain and Portugal are Observer States in the Region.

(source: www.who.int)

21 January 2013 – International cooperation on health is delivering positive results at a time when the world is dealing with multiple challenges such as difficult weather conditions, conflict and economic austerity, a senior United Nations official said today, calling on countries to continue their efforts to improve public health.

"The climate is changing. Antibiotics are failing. The world population keeps getting bigger and older [...] costs are soaring at a time of nearly universal austerity," the Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Margaret Chan, said in her report to the agency's Executive Board in Geneva. "The challenges facing public health are big and increasingly universal, but they are not insurmountable."

Dr. Chan stressed that new challenges need new instruments and approaches, and noted how innovation has allowed for significant progress, reducing the spread of diseases such as meningitis.

As of December, 100 million Africans had received a new conjugate vaccine to protect them from meningitis through a joint WHO project, leading to a dramatic drop in cases in 10 countries, Dr. Chan noted, and a new diagnostic tool for tuberculosis has been made more affordable through financial support from WHO partners, allowing it to be used in more than 70 countries.

Economic uncertainty has led to new health programmes that are equally ambitious while being more mindful of costs to affected countries and the international donor community, she said.

"At a time when funding is precarious, it is particularly encouraging to see how programmes are using new research to set ever higher goals," she said. In particular, she pointed to scientific breakthroughs for HIV, which are more accessible to larger numbers of people at lower costs.

"The range of interventions has expanded dramatically. Safer, more robust antiretroviral therapy is now available even in the world's poorest countries."

WHO is also working with countries to help them make better use of their legislation and regulations to reduce the source of health threats, through treaties such as the first protocol to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control that was adopted in November and aims to eliminate illicit trade in tobacco products.

The protocol treaty, Dr. Chan underlined, "is a watershed event in its own right. It is also a model of what can be achieved when multiple sectors of government, including trade, finance, the environment, customs, law enforcement, and the judicial system, collaborate in the name of health."

Collaboration from the private sector and non-governmental organizations is also necessary, as they help to increase accessibility and affordability of vaccines and medicines, and raise awareness of health measures, Dr. Chan said.

Private companies have so far committed more than $18 million to strengthen pandemic preparedness and in December one of the three largest manufacturers of influenza vaccines, GlaxoSmithKline signed an agreement with WHO to give the agency access to 10 per cent of its total production of pandemic vaccines, in real time. This means that, as the vaccines roll out of production, every 10th dose goes to WHO for distribution to countries most in need. The company has further agreed to give WHO up to 10 million treatment courses of antiviral medicine.

"These are truly first-time, breakthrough achievements," Dr. Chan said. "They mark the beginning of a new approach to establishing a structured and predictable process for ensuring fair access to medical products during an emergency, and strengthening preparedness."

While much progress has been made, there remains a lot to be done to eliminate diseases such as malaria and polio, and address other pressing health issues, including non-communicable diseases such as diabetes. Commitment, accountability, transparency and continuous engagement are required from Member States to achieve this, Dr. Chan stated, as she asked Member States to continue supporting the agency this year.

"International health cooperation is doing much good, despite a world climate of austerity and adversity. A WHO that performs with greater efficiency and effectiveness will make that good even better."

(source: www.un.org)