WONCA and WHO News

August, 2020

The following is a short version of this report to be published in the 2020 WONCA Annual report. WHO liaison person, Viviana Martinez-Bianchi writes:

June, 2020

WONCA has released the following statement (endorsed by WONCA Executive) outlining its support for WHO in the current coronavirus pandemic.

May, 2020

WONCA-WHO Liaison person, Dr Viviana Martinez-Bianchi reports: the 73rd World Health Assembly (WHA73) was held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic on May 18 and 19, 2020, with a reduced agenda dedicated only to the Pandemic response.

March, 2020

WHO has developed numerous resources on COVID-19. An indicative list follows: research database; technical documents and a training course.

December, 2019

We are pleased to inform you that we have launched key WHO materials, tools and a country implementation portal as part of the WHO QualityRights programme.

October, 2019

A two-day consultative meeting was held at the WHO AFRO offices in Congo Brazaville on the 13-14 August 2019. This meeting came as a result of the active participation of Dr Prosper Tumussime at the WONCA Africa conference in June 2019, in Kampala, Uganda. The need for WONCA Africa and WHO AFRO to work together to strengthen health systems in African countries became apparent.

October, 2019

Viviana Martinez-Bianchi, WONCA Executive Member-at Large and WHO Liaison person was the WONCA Delegate to the UN High Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage. September 23, 2019. Now we have a political declaration signed by all member countries of the UN. WONCA invites member organisations to review the declaration

August, 2019

The first consultation meeting of the Primary Health Care Measurement and Improvement Initiative of the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region was held in Cairo WHO EMRO regional office. It was great to see WONCA EMR being given equal billing on this initiative with WHO EMRO, UNICEF and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (which is funding this initiative).

June, 2019

Viviana Martinez-Bianchi, MD, WONCA WHO liaison person, recently attended the World Health Assembly (WHA) as part of the WONCA delegation and submits this report from WHA72. This is my third year in Geneva as WONCA’s WHO Liaison, and I perceived a difference this time. A real and new awareness that what the world needs to improve health outcomes is for the majority of care to be delivered by Primary Health Care (PHC), through the work of interdisciplinary teams, and that these teams need to be well trained, well organized, well supported and well-funded to succeed.

March, 2019

Dr Ruth Wilson of Canada, reports on the WHO consultative meeting “Implementing WHO’s Global Patient Safety Challenge: Medication without harm. Country guidance.” The meeting took place from November 22 – 23, 2018, in Geneva.