World Health Day is celebrated on 7 April to mark the founding of WHO. Each year, the Organization selects a key global health issue and organizes international, regional and local events on the Day and throughout the year to highlight the selected area.
World Health Day 2011 will focus on antimicrobial resistance and its global spread. Antimicrobial resistance threatens the continued effectiveness of many medicines used today to treat the sick, while at the same time it risks jeopardizing important advances being made against major infectious killers.
To underline this, the WHO public awareness campaign will include a special focus on the HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria epidemics. WHO will call on governments and stakeholders to implement the policies and practices needed to prevent and counter the emergence of highly resistant superbugs, and to also provide appropriate care to those seriously affected by these microbes.
