Laura Heath

The need for concerted global health collaboration predated the foundation of the World Health Organization (WHO). With the emergence of international trading and travel in the 1800s, deadly cholera epidemics necessitated a mechanism of international cooperation for disease prevention and control. Conferences such as the International Sanitary Convention in Paris in 1851 were examples of initial collaborative efforts to manage disease that crossed international borders. At the end of World War II (WW2) in 1945, there was a resolve to establish an organisation dedicated to global health. In 1948, at the International Health Conference in New York, 51 members of the United Nations and 10 other nations finalised the constitution for a WHO. This constitution still guides the WHO today.