History
Many of the key events on the modern global health and development timeline occurred in the 1940s, with the formation of the United Nations, World Health Organization and World Bank Group. In 1948, the member states of the newly formed United Nations gathered together to create the World Health Organization. A cholera epidemic that took 20,000 lives in Egypt in 1947 and 1948 helped spur the international community to action.
One of the greatest accomplishments of the international health community since then was the eradication of smallpox. The last naturally occurring case of the infection was recorded in 1977. But in a strange way, success with smallpox bred overconfidence and subsequent efforts to eradicate malaria and other diseases have not been as effective. Indeed, there is now debate within the global health community as to whether eradication campaigns should be abandoned in favor of less costly and perhaps more effective primary health and containment programs.
Read more about this topic: Global Health
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the future will differ according to the decision which we make.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)
“Gossip is charming! History is merely gossip. But scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“There is nothing truer than myth: history, in its attempt to “realize” myth, distorts it, stops halfway; when history claims to have “succeeded” this is nothing but humbug and mystification. Everything we dream is “realizable.” Reality does not have to be: it is simply what it is.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)