“Together for health. Stand with science”, this year’s celebration marks the beginning of a year-long campaign that highlights how scientific collaboration helps safeguard the health of humans, animals, plants, and the environment.78 years ago today, the World Health Organization was founded. That’s why April 7 every year is celebrated as World Health Day. Since the middle of the twentieth century till now in the early twenty first century, we have seen numerous dramatic wins in global health, like the eradication of smallpox, the near eradication of polio, the development of effective drugs like antibiotics and anticancer medications.We have also gotten a better understanding of the close relationship between the health of the planet and of humans, animals and plants. This is why the WHO has dubbed this World Health Day’s theme “Together for health. Stand with science”. Scientific and evidence-based exploration has made this progress possible. But in an age of shrill gainsaying voices denigrating science, it is good to remind ourselves of what we have achieved so we can push further.This post, therefore, will be highlighting the more significant triumphs of global health we have achieved in the past 80 years.the eradication of smallpox: You have never (and will never) see a case of smallpox because the disease was eradicated from the whole world in 1980. This deadly disease was responsible for numerous epidemics in history, even notoriously being used by early American colonists to decimate the native non-immune population. But over 40 years ago, by cooperation among most countries globally and the scientific tools of vaccination, surveillance and intense case control, the human race was able to completely eradicate smallpox from off the face of the earth. Read that again, and consider: humans have what it takes to cancel a disease from existence.the control of HIV/AIDS: when HIV appeared in the 80’s, it was a death sentence. Almost no one survived. S
