WHO Targets One Billion For Better Health

The World Health Organisation (WHO) says it is tar-geting 1 billion more people to enjoy better health and wellbeing will  by 2025.
The plan, it said is  driven primarily by improvements in air quality and access to water, sanitation and hygiene measures.
Meanwhile, the body has listed it achievements in a  Report of  2023, the most comprehensive to date.
The report showcases achievements of key public health milestones by the world health apex agency even amid greater global humanitarian health needs driven by conflict, climate change and disease outbreaks.
The report is expected to be released ahead of the 2024 Seventy-seventh World Health Assembly, which runs from 27 May, 1st June, 2024.
WHO revised Programme Budget for 2022–2023 was US$ 6726.1 million, incorporating lessons learned from the pandemic response and addressing emerging health priorities.
With 96percent of WHO country offices providing 174 country reports on achievements, the report shows some progress towards 46 targets and highlights some challenges.
“The world is off track to reach most of the triple billion targets and the health-related Sustainable Development Goals,” said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “However, with concrete and concerted action to accelerate progress, we could still achieve a substantial subset of them. Our goal is to invest even more resources where they matter most at the country level while ensuring sustainable and flexible financing to support our mission.”
The report shows advancement in several key areas, including healthier populations, Universal Health Coverage (UHC), and health emergencies protection.
Related to healthier populations, the current trajectory indicates the target of 1 billion more people enjoying better health and well-being will likely be met by 2025, driven primarily by improvements in air quality and access to water, sanitation and hygiene measures.
In terms of UHC, 30percent of countries are moving ahead in coverage of essential health services and providing financial protection. This is largely due to increased HIV service coverage.
Regarding emergencies protection, though the coverage of vaccinations for high-priority pathogens shows improvement relative to the COVID-19 pandemic-related disruptions in 2020–2021, it has not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels.
The Pandemic Fund’s first disbursements totaled US$ 338 million in 2023, supporting 37 countries to fund the initial response to acute events and scale up life-saving health operations in protracted crises. WHO continues to work with countries and partners to enhance genomic sequencing capabilities and strengthen laboratory and surveillance systems worldwide with capacity increased by 62percent for SARS-CoV-2 between February 2021 and December 2023.
It said one of the achievements is the world’s first malaria vaccine, RTS,S/AS01 administered to more than two million children in Ghana, Kenya, and Malawi during the biennium, reducing mortality by 13% among children eligible for vaccination. WHO’s prequalification of a second vaccine, R21/Matrix-M, is expected to further boost malaria control efforts.
The first-ever all-oral treatment regimens for multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis were made available in 2022, allowing the highest number of people with tuberculosis to get treatment since monitoring began almost 30 years ago.