Published on 13 Feb 2025
WHO defines Global public health security as the activities required to minimize the danger and impact of acute public health events that endanger the collective health of populations living across geographical regions.
Role of WHO in ensuring health security
✔ Early warning and response: WHO monitors global health trends, outbreaks, emerging diseases, and warns countries for coordinated response.
● Example: WHO tracking the new variants of COVID and giving warnings if the variant is of significant health concern.
✔ Lays down regulations: WHO specifies certain frameworks and oversees the implementation of these guidelines to prevent the spread of diseases.
● Example: International Health Regulation is an international law binding on all the WHO members.
✔ Capacity building: The institution supports nations in strengthening their health systems, including surveillance, laboratory capacity and emergency response.
✔ Financial support: WHO maintains special funds for nations to deal with public health emergencies.
● Example: Around $10 million was taken from the Contingency Fund for Emergency to tackle global cholera.
✔ International collaboration: The global organization brings together government, private sector and NGOs together to address threats imposed due to any disease
✔ Ethical consideration: WHO ensures that the principles of equity, transparency and fair play are maintained as nations pursue their efforts to address diseases.
● Example: WHO was part of the COVAX initiative which sought to bring the equitable distribution of COVID 19 vaccine.
Issues in the functioning of WHO
✔ Funding constraints: WHO relies mostly on member state contributions and voluntary donations. This affects efficient interventions and neutral decision making.
● Example: The shortage of finance slowed down WHO’s response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa during 2014-16.
✔ Political influence: The organization often gets influenced by geopolitical dynamics and this political bias affects their independence and impartiality.
● Example: WHO has been criticized for its bias toward the USA as the nation is the largest finance supplier. During COVID, the institution has been criticized for being pro-China in its approach.
✔ Limited enforcement power: Many times, WHO has failed to ensure compliance and depends on the cooperation from the member states.
✔ Global inequality: WHO has failed, at times, to bring parity in access to healthcare.
● Example: WHO failed to prevent nations resorting to vaccine nationalism, thus depriving vaccine access to poor nations.
✔ Delay in decision making: The body has been criticized for not making timely decisions in preventing diseases.
● Example: WHO's initial response towards COVID was timid, waiting for weeks to declare a public health emergency.
How to improve the functioning of WHO
✔ Empower regional offices: Enhance the autonomy of WHO regional offices to address region-specific health challenges in a decentralized manner.
✔ Streamlined governance: Bureaucratic processes within the system need to be streamlined for enhanced responsiveness and faster decision-making.
✔ Maintain neutrality: Despite dependence on developed economies for funding, the institution should be capable of staying politically neutral to facilitate equity and inclusivity.
✔ Information sharing and coordination: Enhance data collection, analysis and sharing to improve evidence-based decision-making.
Thus, WHO has a prominent role in addressing the global and regional health challenges of the 21st century. For that, the institution must adhere to be impartial, inclusive and responsive in its functioning.
Previous Year Questions (PYQs)
1. “Besides being a moral imperative of welfare state, primary health structure is a necessary pre-condition for sustainable development. “Analyze (2021)
2. Critically examine the role of WHO in providing global health security during the COVID time. (2020)
3. Appropriate local community-level healthcare intervention is a prerequisite to achieve ‘Health for All’ in India. Explain (2018)
4. Public health system has limitations in providing universal health coverage. Do you think that private sector could help in bridging the gap? What other viable alternatives would you suggest? (2015)
Social Justice
WHO
Global Public Health Security
General Studies Paper 2
Social Justice