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The World Health Organization 2010 Global Policy Recommendations: ‘Increasing Access to Health Workers in Remote and Rural Areas through Improved Retention’ is a notable milestone in rural health policy. This report, with preface by WHO Director General Dr. Margaret Chan, recognizes at the very highest level that the half of the world’s population that lives in rural and remote areas faces enor...

BACKGROUND On its establishment, the World Health Organization (WHO) defined health as a fundamental human right deserving legal protection. Subsequently, the Ottawa Charter reaffirmed health as a fundamental right, and emphasized health promotion as the most appropriate response to global health issues. Here we suggest that the WHO definition of health as more than simply the absence of illnes...

Hande Harmanci, Philippe Duclos, Carmen A. Rodriguez Hernandez, Andrew Meek, Madhava Ram Balakrishnan, Narendra Kumar Arora, and Stefan Z. Wiktor Global Hepatitis Programme, World Health Organization, SAGE Secretariat, Department of Vaccines, Immunization and Biologicals, World Health Organization, Prequalification Team, World Health Organization, and Safety and Vigilance Team, World Health Org...

Dr Halfdan Mahler served three terms as director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) from 1973 to 1988. He joined WHO in 1951 as a senior officer attached to the National Tuberculosis Programme in India. He came to WHO headquarters in 1962 as chief of the tuberculosis programme, a post he held until 1969. From 1969 until 1970, he served as director of project systems analysis. From 1...

Leprosy remains a public health problem in Brazil with new case incidence exceeding World Health Organization (WHO) goals in endemic clusters throughout the country. Migration can facilitate movement of disease between endemic and non-endemic areas, and has been considered a possible factor in continued leprosy incidence in Brazil. A study was conducted to investigate migration as a risk factor...

BACKGROUND TO THE DEBATE The World Health Organization (WHO) and its partners aim to treat 3 million people infected with HIV in poor and middle income countries with antiretroviral treatment by the end of 2005. The ambitious "3 by 5" initiative has had its supporters and its critics since its announcement in 2002.

Making Fair Choices on the Path to Universal Health Coverage [UHC; World Health Organization (WHO), 2014] is to be welcomed because tackling the relationship between cost-effectiveness and fairness has been given too little attention in policy-making. The consensus that universal coverage is a good thing quickly disperses as the concept is translated into working national policies and local del...