Agnieszka Sękiewicz‑Magoń Celebrating Health

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“The first wealth is health.” These words by Ralph Waldo Emerson should remind us what is really important in our lives. Yet many people do not appreciate it until they come down withcome down withcome down with a serious illness. By then, the poor diet, missed sleep and lack of exercise take their tolltake their toll [take a toll]take their toll and suddenly, you are immobilisedimmobilisedimmobilised and can’t do much until you fully recoverfully recoverfully recover. Sometimes, a reminder of how essential health is can be helpful in motivating individuals to healthier behaviour, and that is partly the role of World Health Day.

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This day is celebrated on the 7th of April each year in order to commemorate the launchcommemorate the launchcommemorate the launch of the World Health Organisation and to raise awareness aboutraise awareness aboutraise awareness about the overall health and wellbeingwellbeingwellbeing of people around the world. WHO is an agency of the United Nations that concentrates on the public health of the world in general. All UN member countries unanimously signedunanimously signed [unanimously sign]unanimously signed its constitution, agreeing to the tenetstenets [tenet]tenets of general health promotion across the globe. The first World Health Assembly decided to celebrate World Health Day on April 7th of each year, the first one being held in 1950. Since then, this day has been celebrated all over the world, and it has become an important event focusing on a different theme each year in the hope of drawing worldwide attention to a particular current global health issue.

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At present, WHO has 194 members and each of them is tasked with putting together regional, local and international events on this day, referring to the subject set for a particular year. Usually, there are fundraising campaignsfundraising campaigns [fundraising campaign]fundraising campaigns created in the build‑up toin the build‑up toin the build‑up to World Health Day in an attempt to provide the most vulnerable communities around the world with better access to essential health provisionsessential health provisions [essential health provision]essential health provisions. There are also a lot of events aimed not only at educating the public and policy makerspolicy makers [policy maker]policy makers about a specific aspect of the organisation's work, but also at triggering actiontriggering action [trigger action]triggering action by governments and other health stakeholdershealth stakeholders [health stakeholder]health stakeholders to improve health services. They may include conferences for health workers, panel discussions, briefingsbriefings [briefing]briefings for local politicians and informational displaysinformational displays [informational display]informational displays for children and young people. Sometimes, there might also be charity events, public marches or demonstrations, as well as free screening of people and other medical tests organised by local authorities.

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The World Health Organisation has been working tirelessly to improve many aspects of health around the world. One of its biggest achievements is the global eradication of smallpoxglobal eradication of smallpoxglobal eradication of smallpox (a highly infectious disease), which happened between 1958 and 1979, so it took the organisation only 20 years to succeed in this mission. The achievement went down in historywent down in history [go down in history]went down in history as the first disease ever to be eliminated by the dedicated effortdedicated effort dedicated effort of humans working together from different parts of the world. Other successes include reducing the number of polio cases by more than 99% since 1988, immunisationimmunisationimmunisation of more than two billion children and the implementationimplementationimplementation of a wide range of public health strategies. The present focus of the organisation is on communicable diseasescommunicable diseases [communicable disease]communicable diseases, such as tuberculosistuberculosistuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.

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Although the main theme of World Health Day varies from year to year, it always revolves around important issues of the day, ranging from the global eradication of polio, through staying active in old age, to road safety. All of them have been deemeddeemed [deem]deemed vital enough to merit further discussionmerit further discussionmerit further discussion, especially on that particular day. Thanks to such initiatives, we are reminded to be grateful for being healthy and take care of our health as well as we can, hoping the world will get rid of serious diseases in the future.

1 Źródło: Agnieszka Sękiewicz‑Magoń , licencja: CC BY-SA 3.0.