Tuesday, April 12, 2005

World Health Day 2005

Imagine my surprise to look down at the calendar and realize that World Health Day 2005 (April 7) had already come and gone, with hardly a notice in the news.

The theme of this year's World Health Day is "Make Every Mother and Child Count" and it focuses on the health of women and children as a vital aspect of development. This, of course, is part of a larger focus of the World Health Organization on health as an issue of development and security. The argument is quite simple: human capital--education and training--is one of the most important investments that a developing country can make, and health is a vital part of any investment in human capital--especially with health issues such as AIDS that strike disproportionately at the working-age population.

The World Health Report 2005 is available online at the WHO/OMS website.

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