scholarly journals Global Governance and the WHO’s Mandate Post-COVID-19 Crisis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Vilbert

The COVID-19 has renovated the debate about global health governance. A number of scholars have proposed that the World Health Organization should assume the position of a central coordinator with hierarchical powers, demanding nation-states to “share their sovereignty”. This article presents four main objections to this project. First, when international institutions receive leverage, they use to impose “one-size-fits-all” policies, which conflicts with the characteristic heterogeny across countries. Second, geopolitical questions and the distribution of power in multilateral institutions put developing countries in a position of vulnerability within a hierarchical order. Third, the risk of crowding out parallel initiatives, especially from non-state actors. Fourth, decisions about health can have a major impact on countries, which may thwart the internal democratic principle. A Pareto improvement would be possible by strengthening the WHO’s operational capacity and its ability to issue technical guidance and coordinate with countries. To test this hypothesis, this study analyses the possible influence of the WHO’s guidance in the first year of the coronavirus health crisis, from January 2020 to January 2021, in 37 countries reported in the World Values Survey Wave 7 (2017-2020). The OLS regression performed shows a statistically significant negative relationship between the trust in the WHO, assumed as a proxy for the level of the organization's penetration, and the number of cases of COVID-19 (per million people) in the countries of the sample. These findings reinforce the hypothesis that there is a valid case for the countries to strengthen the WHO’s mandate post-COVID-19, but they should enhance the operations of provision of reliable information and support. Nation-states, in particular the developing ones, should eschew the temptation to create a hierarchical global health structure, which may not only fail due to countries’ asymmetries but is likely to create losers in the process.

Author(s):  
Ken Hyland ◽  
Feng (Kevin) Jiang

Abstract Covid-19, the greatest global health crisis for a century, brought a new immediacy and urgency to international bio-medical research. The pandemic generated intense competition to produce a vaccine and contain the virus, creating what the World Health Organization referred to as an ‘infodemic’ of published output. In this frantic atmosphere, researchers were keen to get their research noticed. In this paper, we explore whether this enthusiasm influenced the rhetorical presentation of research and encouraged scientists to “sell” their studies. Examining a corpus of the most highly cited SCI articles on the virus published in the first seven months of 2020, we explore authors’ use of hyperbolic and promotional language to boost aspects of their research. Our results show a significant increase in hype to stress certainty, contribution, novelty and potential, especially regarding research methods, outcomes and primacy. Our study sheds light on scientific persuasion at a time of intense social anxiety.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadja Meisterhans

Blaming the World Health Organization (who) for its failures in the Ebola crisis was a common reaction of the media. However, exclusively denouncing the who for the spread of Ebola falls short as it does not recognize the structural deficits of those recent governance procedures financing global health that lead to a chronic underfunding of the who. Against this background, the article reflects perspectives of a democratic reform of global health funding. It concludes that only the who can provide a leadership on global health matters, but to do so it depends on states willing to rebuild the who’s capacities to act. To address the global health crisis properly, the revitalization of who’s constitutional mandate is critically necessary. The discussion is based on normative legal theory, which argues that processes of globalization have transformed international law into a global rule of law, placing specific duties on states and international institutions.


Author(s):  
Izolda Khasaia ◽  
Nana Kvirtia

The coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic is the global health crisis of our time. Every day people lose their jobs and income. The World Health Organization estimates that 25 million jobs could be lost. The pandemic has caused serious damage to the tourism industry. International traffic statistics decreased by 74%. One of the businesses that has been severely affected by the pandemic is the hotel business. More than 75% of which suffered significant revenue cuts and 46% of hotels and restaurants had to lay off staff in full.There are 262 accommodation facilities in Imereti, where 1179 people are employed. Studies have shown that the number of employees in all hotels has been significantly reduced, while 10% of small hotels have closed altogether. Overall, from the first wave of the pandemic to the survey period, 65.8% of hotel staff were laid off (free leave was granted): small hotels reduced service staff by 71%, medium-sized hotels by an average of 65%.Hotel revenue for the first 10 months of 2020 decreased significantly compared to the same period in 2019 (reduced by 75%).It was found that due to delays caused by the coronavirus, additional financial resources were needed to save the business and 34% of the hotels applied to financial institutions.The state is trying to support small and medium-sized businesses with measures such as deferral of rent, subsidies, deferral of taxes.Quarantine zones and coveted hotels were opened in a number of hotels, which helped maintain employment and income for sector representatives and people employed in the sector.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 120-122
Author(s):  
Maryam Siddiqui ◽  
Tanya Thakkar ◽  
Vivek Mehta

We are confronting a global health crisis that is significantly impacting community health, bringing about the death toll, spreading human misery, and overturning individual’s lives. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), is striking societies at their core. This outbreak is inextricably linked to the students of the nation, as it has dramatically impeded educational sectors. With the closure of educational institutions across the world, instructional schooling has ground to a halt from the level of primary education up to the level of professional training. COVID-19 has exhibited significant psychological and actual consequences for the students. Guiding focuses or helplines/gateways should be set up to avoid any grave consequences and untoward misfortunes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nafisa Qibriya Khan ◽  
A. H. Farooqui ◽  
Syed Ayesha Fatima ◽  
Jalil Ahmad ◽  
Tausif S. Khan

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a pandemic disease of modern time with unique and rapid transmission rate and affected almost all the nations without respecting any border. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is arguably the biggest health crisis the world has faced in 21st century. It is an infectious disease and declared pandemic by the World Health Organization. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, which originated in Wuhan, China, has now spread to 192 countries and administrative regions infecting nearly 800,000 individuals of all ages as of 31 March 2020. Though most infected individuals exhibit mild symptoms including fever, upper respiratory tract symptoms, shortness of breath, and diarrhoea, or are asymptomatic altogether, severe cases of infection can lead to pneumonia, multiple organ failure, and death. Globally, at least 7900 deaths have been directly attributed to COVID19, and this number is expected to rise with the ongoing epidemic. This is particularly crucial as the current outbreak involves a new pathogen (SARS-CoV-2), on which limited knowledge exists of its infectivity and clinical profile. Research is in progress on therapeutic efficacy of various agents including anti-malarials (Chloroquine and Hydroxychloroquine), antiviral drugs, and convalescent serum of recovered patients. Unani system of medicine is one of the traditional systems of medicine which is being explored for providing preventive, supportive and rehabilitative care to patients. Unani system of medicine has a detailed description of drugs that are utilized in many infectious diseases, including respiratory infections. Immune response is essential to eliminate virus and to preclude disease progression to severe stages. Therefore, it is important to summarize the evidence regarding the preventive measures, control options such as immune-stimulator and prophylactic treatment in Unani medicine against Covid19. This review summarizes various pharmacological actions of Unani formulation Tiryaq-e-Arba in Unani literature and various reported pharmacological activities which can possibly provide prevention, control and reduction of complications of this deadly disease.


2020 ◽  

In the past 100 years, the world has faced four distinctly different pandemics: the Spanish flu of 1918-1919, the SARS pandemic of 2003, the H1N1 or “swine flu” pandemic of 2012, and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Each public health crisis exposed specific systemic shortfalls and provided public health lessons for future events. The Spanish flu revealed a nursing shortage and led to a great appreciation of nursing as a profession. SARS showed the importance of having frontline clinicians be able to work with regulators and those producing guidelines. H1N1 raised questions about the nature of a global organization such as the World Health Organization in terms of the benefits and potential disadvantages of leading the fight against a long-term global public health threat. In the era of COVID-19, it seems apparent that we are learning about both the blessing and curse of social media.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 11-17
Author(s):  
Mirza Ghulamudin Ghulamudin ◽  
Maufur ◽  
Beni Habibi

Covid-19 has now attacked Indonesia, where the spread of the disease is very fast. Not only in Indonesia, but all corners of the world are currently experiencing a health crisis. In the beginning, the spread of Covid-19 had an impact on economic activity which began to sluggish. This also has an impact on the education system in Indonesia. Until several countries decided to close schools and universities. In an effort to prevent the spread of covid-19, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends temporarily stopping activities that would potentially cause crowds. Even during the outbreak, covid-19 in Indonesia, there were many ways that the government did to prevent its spread through social distancing. Kemendikbud instructed through the Ministry of Education and Culture (Kemendikbud) Directorate of Higher Education Circular No. 1 of 2020 concerning the prevention of the spread of covid-19 in the world of Education to organize distance learning and advise students to learn from their homes. Teachers and students are starting to be required to follow the current situation by using technology as a distance learning medium. One of the media that is being favored by teachers as a learning medium is the Google Classroom application. This application is an application that can make it easier for students and teachers to create effective learning. Given that students today are a generation who are very familiar with the use of technology. The use of technology in learning is an alternative method used by teachers during the Covid-19 Pandemic.


Author(s):  
Duana Fullwiley

This chapter further explores issues of patients' tenacity to shape science, through advocacy on an international level, and investigates the ways that making a disease public in Africa often entails locating it within discourses of humanitarian “crisis,” emergency, and global health prioritization. In this way, tireless patient advocates of African origin living in France created the sickle cell disease umbrella organization of the International Organization for the Fight against Sickle Cell (OILD), which succeeded in getting sickle cell anemia the attention of the World Health Organization and the United Nations in 2008. The OILD's strategy of making sickle cell visible to these multilateral institutions consisted of linking the disease to other pressing global health problems for development through means that often deployed uncertainty as “data.”


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document