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WORLD
WHO announces theme of
World Health Day 2005
HIGHLIGHTING AN INVISIBLE
HEALTH CRISIS, the World Health
Organization (WHO) is making
maternal and child health the focus of
World Health Day on 7 April 2005.
The WHO is also launching the World
Health Report – also dedicated to
maternal and child health – on World
Health Day for the first time ever.
In developing countries, pregnancy
and childbirth is one of the leading
causes of death for women of
reproductive age, and one child in 12
does not reach his or her fifth birthday.
Yet, the fate of these women and
children is too often overlooked or
ignored.
The slogan for World Health Day
2005 ‘Make Every Mother and Child
Count’ reflects the reality that today,
governments and the international
community need to make the health of
women and children a higher priority.
World Health Day 2005
Make every mother and child count
Launch of new alliance to improve global patient safety
A SERIES OF KEY ACTIONS to cut the number of illnesses, injuries and deaths
suffered by patients during health care was announced by the World Health
Organization (WHO) and its partners on 27 October 2004 with the launch of the
World Alliance for Patient Safety under the chairmanship of Sir Liam Donaldson,
Chief Medical Officer of the United Kingdom.
The creation of the World Alliance comes two years after the Fifty-fifth World
Health Assembly Resolution on Patient Safety in 2002 called on Member States
to pay the closest possible attention to the problem of patient safety and to
establish and strengthen science-based systems necessary for improving patient
safety and quality of health care, including the monitoring of drugs, medical
equipment and technology.
The Alliance has a firm objective to deliver six programmes within the next two
years:
➜ a key element will be the Global Patient Safety Challenge, focusing over
2005-2006 on the challenge of health care associated infection;
➜ Patients for Patient Safety involving patient organisations and individuals in
Alliance work;
➜ Taxonomy for Patient Safety ensuring consistency in the concepts,
principles, norms and terminology used in patient safety work;
➜ Research for Patient Safety developing a rapid assessment tool for use in
developing countries and undertaking global prevalence studies of adverse
effects;
➜ Solutions for Patient Safety promoting existing interventions and
coordinating activity internationally to ensure new solutions are delivered;
➜ Reporting and Learning generating best practice guidelines for existing and
new reporting systems, and facilitating early learning from information
available.
The World Alliance for Patient Safety will build on existing national efforts and
initiatives sharing the same vision and link with programmes for improving
patient safety. It is expected that its work will eventually lead to much greater
long-term safety in health care.
For more information contact: Pauline Philip, Patient Safety Unit
WHO/Geneva; philipp@who.int
Global Forum addresses disparities in health research
The World Health Day 2005 website,
includes a toolkit for organisers of
World Health Day activities and the
World Health Day slogan and design
shown above.
For more information see:
www.who.int/entity/world-healthday/2005/en
THE EIGHTH ANNUAL MEETING of the Global Forum for Health Research, was
held in Mexico City, 16–20 November 2004 in conjunction with the WHO
Ministerial Summit on Health Research and brought together over 700
participants from government, intergovernmental organisations, NGOs, the
private sector, researchers and research councils to consider ‘health research to
achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)’.
The forum found that the vicious circle of poverty and ill health at which the
MDGs are targeted will not be broken without intensified effort to close the
continuing ‘10/90 gap’. In many developing countries, efforts for poverty
eradication have been undermined by deterioration in the population’s health.
The attainment of the MDG poverty target will depend on increased research
directed to the health needs of those living in absolute poverty, and to improving
access to affordable products and services in a variety of settings. Health policy
and systems research and social sciences, behavioural and operational research
are vital to this aim.
Vol. 40 No. 4 WORLD | World hospitals Hospitals and and health Health services Services | 13| 07