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The health policies implemented by the WHO have delivered some highly encouraging results. The report prepared by Dr Margaret Chan outgoing Director-General is focusing on "Ten Years in public health 2007-2017". It demonstrates that the international community is most effective when it acts together. First it is important to mention that health and life expectancy have improved nearly everywhere on our planet. And Dr Chan recalled some striking figures showing the importance and the quality of the work achieved by all the staff of the Organization.

And it should also be noted that the WHO work teams often operate in extremely harsh conditions. So in 2016 through the work of the WHO almost one billion people received free treatments for tropical diseases that can lead to blindness or maim. Let us add that the number of people dying from Malaria and HIV has been reduced by half. And that the number of child deaths decreased dramatically. Not everything was perfect, of course. The campaign to tackle Ebola has been widely criticized, and rightly so. But the International Organization is not responsible for the behavior of armed groups who daily throughout the world, and in particular in Syria, attack health care centers. These criminal practices which destroy the work of the WHO are clearly under the responsibility of the UN itself.

Mo Tailland / 9th June 2017

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