WHO visit to China heralds closer links

In her first visit to a member state of the WHO, Director General Gro Harlem Brundtland this week visited China, signalling “a revolution in the way the WHO looks at both Asia and health.”

Following her own prescription to put health higher on the political agenda, Brundtland's schedule included meetings with China's president, Jiang Zemin, and premier, Zhu Rongji, as well as with the ministers of health and the environment to discuss how to bring health into the broader political and economic agenda in China.

Dr Brundtland began her visit by launching an initiative to “create a tobacco free environment and build a green campus” at Beijing's Tshinghua University. The second stop on the tour featured a visit to Xi Yuan Hospital, which is operated under the auspices of the Academy of Traditional Chinese Medicine. In another departure from past WHO practices, acknowledgement of China's vast reservoir of knowledge and experience in the area of traditional medicine--such as malaria remedies--was made.

Dr Bruntland also made a field visit to observe a tuberculosis control programme in Wuhan, and visited the Shanghai Institute of Parasitic Diseases at the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine to profile the WHO's campaign to “roll back” malaria.

Throughout her tour Dr Brundtland took care to move the WHO beyond the purely health related realm, repositioning it clearly in a more comprehensive economic and political context. The importance of universal access to affordable health care was emphasised.

The trip was intended to send the message that the new WHO is swiftly evolving into an organisation that “closely mirrors the world's current health emergencies, priorities, and concerns.” By all accounts, the trip was a success. Premier Zhu Rongji personally pledged to push ahead with the “universalisation” of his country's health insurance system, strongly endorsed the WHO's antimalaria and tobacco initiatives, and announced China's pledge, as the first developing country, to contribute to the WHO's renewal fund.

MIKE FIALA/AP PHOTO

China has agreed to take part in the WHO's tobacco initiative