Speech: The place of health on the post-2015 development agenda
Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization
Opening remarks at an informal Member State consultation on health in the post-2015 development agenda
Geneva, Switzerland
14 December 2012
http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2012/mdgs_post2015/en/index.html

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Speech: Biological security as part of health security
Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization
Opening remarks at a meeting on Global health security collaboration between the Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction and international organizations
Geneva, Switzerland
17 December 2012

Extract
“…I am pleased to share this session with the heads of OIE and FAO. Let me congratulate these two agencies on the successful eradication of rinderpest.

Implementation of the International Health Regulations is not an exclusive function of the health sector. The need to engage non-health as well as health sectors was explicitly recognized earlier this year when the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution on implementation of the Regulations.

As discussions about the Regulations revealed, WHO Member States are worried about the continuing lack of capacity, in many countries, to respond to emerging and re-emerging infections.

Too many countries are not yet able to detect an unusual disease event and investigate it, find the cause, report to WHO, gear up their health systems for heightened surveillance, and marshal the appropriate equipment, supplies, and other logistical support. These weaknesses come from a lack of routine surveillance systems, a lack of laboratory capacity, a lack of resources, and a severe shortage of epidemiologists and other specialists.

One statistic tells a disturbing story. Some 85 countries, representing 65% of the world’s population, do not have reliable systems of vital registration. This means that causes of death are neither investigated nor recorded.

This is why many emerging diseases, including highly fatal ones, can smoulder undetected for weeks if not months. Outbreaks frequently become visible only after amplification of infection in a hospital or clinic leads to an explosion of cases that is too big to miss.

In other instances, new diseases, were recognized only after people fell ill and were air-evacuated for treatment to countries with sophisticated diagnostic capacity. This is what happened with the novel coronavirus. Such lapses in vigilance weaken our collective security…

http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2012/health_security_20121217/en/index.html