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:
“Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out.”
—G.M. (George Macaulay)
“Free from public debt, at peace with all the world, and with no complicated interests to consult in our intercourse with foreign powers, the present may be hailed as the epoch in our history the most favorable for the settlement of those principles in our domestic policy which shall be best calculated to give stability to our Republic and secure the blessings of freedom to our citizens.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“A man acquainted with history may, in some respect, be said to have lived from the beginning of the world, and to have been making continual additions to his stock of knowledge in every century.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)