It was another action packed day here in Geneva, Switzerland!

We were up and ready to go this morning for the first session of the morning at the WHA. The title of this morning’s panel was “Addressing Violence Against Women: Health Impacts and Role of the Health Sector” and was organized by the delegations of Belgium, India, the United States, Zambia, Mexico, Norway, and the Netherlands. 

Included as a speaker on the panel was Kathleen Sebelius (U.S. Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services), in addition to the Commissioner for Social Affairs of the African Union (Dr. Mustapha S. Kaloko), the Secretary of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of India (Dr. Keshav Desiraju), the Minister of Social Affairs and Public Health of Belgium (Laurette Onkelinx), the Secretary of Health of Mexico (Dr. Mercedes Juan Lopez), the Minister of Health of Zambia (Dr. Joseph Kasonde) and the Minister of Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation of Norway (Lilianne Ploumen). Within this session, we learned about the status of women in these regions of the world and efforts that have been made at the policy-level to prevent violence against women and girls, and efforts to provide care to victims of violence. 

From the U.S. perspective, Secretary Sebelius described the “Violence Against Women” Act that was passed by Congress in 1994 and resigned by President Obama in 2010. This policy protects women as victims of violence and also reinforces community-level efforts to provide care and prevention programs. To hear the perspectives of delegates from these diverse regions of the world about an important issue like this was particularly interesting. The consensus among the delegates on the panel was that more needs to be done to protect women and girls from acts of violence, social norms need to be changed in many regions of the world as a prevention mechanism, education is a key step to prevent violence, and the passage and support of global policies should be a key priority. Following this session, several of us had the opportunity to meet Secretary Sebelius, introduce ourselves, shake her hand, and snap a picture with her, which was a great experience.

For the afternoon, several of us attended a workshop called “Antibiotic Resistance - A Threat to Global Health Security,” which was organized by the delegates from Great Britain, Northern Ireland, and Sweden. This session, which was delivered to a packed house (all chairs filled with others standing along the perimeter of the room and in the doorway). The panel described the increasing threat of antibiotic resistant microbes that are beginning to emerge due to the misuse of antibiotics in both humans and animals....one of those topics that could keep you up at night! We unfortunately had to duck out early from this session to grab seats for the series of keynote speakers that addressed the assembly that afternoon.

Each year, the World Health Assembly has an invited speaker, who is not named until the day they speak. This year, we had the opportunity to hear from Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma (Chair of the African Union Commission), Gunilla Carlsson (Minister for the International Development Cooperation - Sweden), and Dr. Jim Yong Kim (President of the World Bank). Among the topics they discussed were the role of women in society, as well as progress toward reaching the Millennium Development Goals, set to expire in 2015. 

WHA budget committee hearing

Following this, a few of us sat in on a budget committee meeting, where we had the opportunity to hear the delegates discuss the WHO budget. This was really fascinating to see. We heard delegates from India, Indonesia, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Oman, Germany, Nigeria, and the U.S. address the committee and offer comments on the status of the WHO budget. 

Finally, our day ended with a final evening session on the March 2013 H7N9 (“bird flu”) outbreak in China. This was probably the most interesting session I’ve attended thus far. The session was sponsored by the Chinese delegation, along with the WHO. The session offered public comments by the Chinese delegation about the status of H7N9 that were then reported by journalists from across the world. Here’s a link to a Reuters article I found on “Yahoo! News” 2 hours after the session had ended!: http://news.yahoo.com/h7n9-bird-flu-outbreak-costs-more-6-5-175625330.html. 

H7N9 session

In the session, information was provided on how the outbreak occurred, the current status, and the response from the Chinese government. It was noted that the virus is not currently transmitted from person to person (only bird to person) and that significant efforts have been made within China to continue reporting to the WHO, to monitor the progress of individuals who have contracted the illness, and to ensure additional cases are not discovered. It was extremely interesting to be present to hear this news reported and to think about what this means for global health!

By the end of our (13 hour!) day at the UN, we were all pretty tired! But excited about what we had learned. Numerous sessions are held at any given time, so other students in our group go to see and hear other really interesting things. It is amazing the kind of information we’re picking up on any given day! It has been so interesting to see how the WHO works, how the assembly fits into WHO policies, and to observe the interactions of delegates from around the world. It is an extremely diverse environment that we are all learning a lot from.

From a logistics perspective, each of the sessions are primarily delivered in English. Translations are available, however, in real time. At each seat in each of the rooms are a small head phone that hooks over your ear. You can change channels to get the speaker’s translation in your own language. It’s very cool!

Tomorrow, we travel to the World Health Organization to meet Susan Wilburn, a Kent State University College of Nursing graduate who currently works for the WHO. During our time with her, we will get to learn about the work she does, in addition to more global public health information! We will also meet with representatives from the American Nurses Association, as well as the director of the WHO’s “Tobacco Free Initiative.” 

More tomorrow! :)

Diana

From inside the UN, looking out!