Sixty-fourth World Health Assembly passes multiple vaccine related resolutions

The World Health Assembly spent eight days working through a broad agenda from which 28 resolutions and three decisions were adopted to guide the upcoming work of the Organization and to address priority global health issues. “I believe this has been an especially productive and profoundly effective Assembly,” says Dr Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization. “These World Health Assemblies are having a tremendous impact on the health of this world.” After opening speeches from Dr Chan, Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh, and Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the policy work of the Health Assembly began with a presentation of outcomes from the independent Review Committee which reviewed WHO’s response to the influenza pandemic and the International Health Regulations. After a year of investigation, the committee agreed that the International Health Regulations helped better prepare the world to cope with public health emergencies but...