This year’s World health report, entitled "A safer future: global public health security in the 21st century", was published on 23 August 2007.
Its message is that more than at any time in history global public health security depends on international cooperation and the willingness of all countries to act effectively in tackling new and emerging threats.
At the launch of the WHO report the rapid rise of new disease threats, was highlighted. New 39 pathogens since 1967 including HIV, Ebola haemorrhagic fever, Marburg fever and SARS have added to long standing threats from pandemic influenza, malaria and tuberculosis that are being exacerbated by our increasingly interconnected world.
WHO Director Dr. Magaret Chan stated that "given today’s universal vulnerability to these threats, better security calls for global solidarity. International public health security is both a collective aspiration and a mutual responsibility. The new watchwords are diplomacy, cooperation, transparency and preparedness."
The report contains six key recommendations:
1. full implementation of the revised International Health Regulations (IHR 2005) by all countries;
2. global cooperation in surveillance and outbreak alert and response;
3. open sharing of knowledge, technologies and materials, including viruses and other laboratory samples, necessary to optimize secure global public health;
4. global responsibility for capacity building within the public health infrastructure of all countries;
5. cross-sector collaboration within governments; and
6. increased global and national resources for training, surveillance, laboratory capacity, response networks, and prevention campaigns.
