Introduction
The healthcare objectives are concerned with the most influential international organizations and governments of different countries. In this respect, the role of their critical leadership in maintaining the world issues concerned with health cannot be underestimated. When the healthcare of mankind is at stake, responsible for this task organizations should mobilize their efforts to keep the situation stable. World Health Organization (WHO), US Center of Disease Control (CDC), and Individual Countries are under analysis. The paper provides a scope of a critical survey on the role of each of the aforementioned structures in eliminating rates of infectious diseases. In this respect, the main aspects to be worked out are reporting as well as verifying cases of infectious diseases. Thus, WHO, CDC, and Individual countries are aimed in their main functions and responsibilities at finding out the best way to report and control infectious diseases.
Discussion
The situation in the world is constantly changing in terms of different threats to humanity and its healthcare. This hypothesis has been taken for granted in light of the latest events in the world. It constitutes that the main organizations for healthcare should keep a strict eye for diseases to take place where people live. The basic organization in this respect is, of course, WHO. Its role in the stabilization process is likely to be similar to the coordinating body in the universal framework. Thereafter, CDC and Individual Countries comply with the decisions and acts adopted by the WHO assembly.
WHO
The organization positions itself as the main regulatory body for fixing any case of epidemics or diseases rates generally in the world and specifically in any country worldwide. Thereupon, the scope of the interests that WHO has according to stabilizing the safety of the environment is quite enormous. The organization focuses on the population rates and density at the current level of the world’s demographic and socio-economic and political development. These variables are included in the surveys by WHO. Hence, researchers give the following definition of WHO as population-related organization:
A combination of procedures, methods, and tools by which a policy, program, or project may be judged as to its potential effects on the health of the population and the distribution of effects within the population (Lee, Ingram, Lock, & McInnes, 2007).
The reputable role of WHO in predicting and preventing infectious diseases is in the set of tools that the organization uses so far. The question is about the Global Alert and Response (GAR) system serving to fix any rate of epidemics by the national surveys on emergencies in the domain of public health (Global Alert and Response (Global Alert and Response (GAR), 2010). Such a global method to delineate and better verify the rates of epidemics in the world states automatically in GAR. One of the core functions of GAR is to coordinate and support epidemic preparedness and response to timely eliminate any case of a seasonal or spontaneous epidemic or pandemic outbreaks (Global Alert and Response (GAR), 2010).
Furthermore, the role of the WHO in decreasing rates of infectious diseases is changing. It is reported that since the dynamics of diseases for the last few decades have varied significantly, thus the board of WHO constructs and implements various sets of measures as applied to a definite situation (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 2008). Thus, WHO plays mainly a regulatory and coordination role to manage healthcare security worldwide. In most points, it is adjusted to the WHO Global Disease Response Plan that goes hand in hand with US Centers for Diseases Control.
CDC
The significance of this organization is in the fact that every activity of it seems to extend the regulatory acts and documents developed and adopted by WHO. In this case one should take into consideration the four goals of the CDC’s Emerging Infections Plan, namely:
- Emphasizing infectious disease surveillance and response;
- Relating research data gained in terms of well-known and new infections;
- Advancing public health through training;
- Improving control and prevention projects on three main levels: at a definite place, nationwide, and globally (Bhargava, 2006).
Thus, by managing outbreaks of infectious diseases through complex surveillance, CDC contributes to the decrease harmful effects on health.
Individual Countries
The International Health Regulations (IHR) pursuant to WHO provide a scope of data on different areas of national health performance among developing countries. The great responsibility lies, therefore, on the ability of individual countries to provide surveillance and information on monitoring the situation as for healthcare on the whole. This part in providing circumspect policy of preventing the population from infectious diseases is due to “individual countries’ monitoring reports, which are supplemented by country scorecards issued by the UN Development Programme” (Bhargava, 2006, p. 421). To a large extent, individual countries and their reporting procedures depend on the country’s occupational status (Jacobsen, 2008). Thus, individual countries are where the healthcare verification to prevent infectious diseases begins.
Summary
Based on the above-discussed information, the policies and role of the three listed links in the global chain of healthcare are adjusted on a descending scale. WHO plays a role of a prior instance to control and report infectious diseases. CDC assists WHO in making global prospects possible by means of the rates of qualification of the CDC’s personnel and by substantial funding responsibilities (as being located in the US). Finally, individual countries play the role of the smallest (not insignificant) parts in the global healthcare mechanism. In conjunction with all three constituent parts, the system of reporting and preventing infectious diseases runs normally.
With such programs as GAR provided by WHO and CDC’s Emerging Infections Plan, the situation in the healthcare domain stays under strict control. According to individual countries, key milestones for countries include the assessment of their surveillance and response capacities (IHR, 2010, p. 1). To say more, the US initiative to protect own country from health threats was put forth into the global intention of CDC to take care of health stability worldwide (CDC, 2009). This points to the fact that the construct of the world healthcare system is highly supported by timely actions on each of three guts to prevent infectious diseases.
Recommendations
Taking into consideration everything stated above, one should infer the importance of coherent (close) cooperation between three links in the healthcare system. Thereupon, it is vital to presuppose that the main dialogue on reporting and controlling infectious diseases should have more connections to the local governments and such influential organizations as IMF and World Bank about issues concerned mainly with healthcare in Africa at large. Nevertheless, the main approach is to keep WHO, CDC, and individual countries in close relation to the responsibility of each for the well-being of humanity.
Reference
Bhargava, V. K. (2006). Global issues for global citizens: an introduction to key development challenges. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications.
CDC. (2009, January 26). Global Health. Web.
Global Alert and Response (GAR). (2010). Web.
IHR. (2010). International Health Regulations (IHR). Web.
Jacobsen, K. H. (2008). Introduction to global health. Boston, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Lee, K., Ingram, A., Lock, K., & McInnes, C. (2007). Bridging health and foreign policy: the role of health impact assessments. Bulletin of the World Health Organization , 85, 207-211.
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. (2008). SIPRI Yearbook 2008: Armaments, Disarmament, and International Security. Reston, VA: Oxford University Press US.