Disaster Scenarios & Tales Se 

Public Health and Security

 

".................If public health were to be given the support of the United Nation’s Security Council, certainly a lofty ideal, it would represent a commendable initiative. It will send out clear messages in all directions to  reinforce universal notions set out in the concepts of a peace culture and a society for all ages [UNESCO],within the health for all strategy [WHO] and the principles of  human security [UNDP], freedom from want, freedom from fear.

 

What better way to promote human development than through the concept of health, implicit in the Millennium Development Goals. Placing the health of the public under the Security Council can serve to fulfill the vision of the UN.  Only in this way can the World Health Organization gain greater influence, achieve more capability and be able to guarantee cross-border access in the case of humanitarian disaster, as in the case of Syria today.

 

I conclude, that if two different epidemics that unfolded at different times, in different places, can somehow merge catalytically on the political agenda, then perhaps ever more frequent  occurring health nightmares can be intercepted, nipped in the bud or even made to disappear and make the world a safer place for our  children and for all children.................."

 

 

From "Health  in Time’s Warp: Dengue and Polio - Greece and Syria"

Jeffrey Levett