PEDIATRICS Vol. 63 No. 5 May 1979, pp. 797
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WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: FROM 1948 TO 1990

H. Mahler

In the early days of WHO, efforts were concentrated on trying to control specific diseases. But the world itself has changed and we realize this is only a part of the story. As stated in WHO's constitution, health is much more than the absence of disease. Health development has to go hand in hand with social and economic development, and all activities for such development have to be properly coordinated. Elaborate technology is no longer seen as the key to health care. Similarly our health manpower policies seek to make the best possible use of the health personnel that can be made available in a reasonable time at a reasonable cost.

It is a tremendous achievement that the world has agreed on certain specific health targets—the access of all the world's children by 1990 to immunization against the six major infectious diseases of childhood, and the supply of safe drinking water to all families by the same year. In an entirely different field, confidence is growing that certain cardiovascular diseases can be tackled at the community level through active programmes of prevention.