On 4 February Slovakia marks the 30th anniversary of its accession to the World Health Organisation (WHO), whose main task is to promote health, health safety and strengthen health systems. Its importance has also been demonstrated during the latest global pandemic of COVID-19 and refugee crises.
Slovakia has also historically for the first time in the WHO Executive Board since last year. Professor Jozef Šuvada represents him in this most important decision-making body of WHO in 2022-2025.
The recent experience of the international community in emergency situations concerning the COVID-19 pandemic or the war conflict in Ukraine and the refugee crisis has also shown the importance of well adapted measures and international coordination. We therefore believe that investments in the preparedness and response phase for public health emergencies, as well as the building of resilient health systems, are important, said Minister of Health Vladimir Lengvarský.
Following the outbreak of the global pandemic COVID-19, WHO had a huge global challenge, cooperated with 1600 technical and operational partners and helped organise the largest, fastest and most complex vaccinations in history. At the same time, in recent years, with regard to migratory waves, it has addressed issues of the health of refugees and migrants as well as assistance to Ukraine.
The World Health Organisation - the UN system's intergovernmental organisation on health issues - was established on 7 April 1948. It is on 7 April that the whole world remembers this day as World Health Day. The WHO has established 61 signatory countries, including former Czechoslovakia, which have signed the Constitution of the World Health Organisation. WHO currently has 194 members, the Slovak Republic became a member on 4 February 1993.

WHO's tasks and activities have changed over the years. While the organisation initially focused on women's and children's health, nutrition, hygiene, and the fight against malaria and tuberculosis, it gradually expanded to other areas. In the European region, the WHO engages in health-enhancing activities - prevention of non-communicable diseases, tobacco control, obesity and nutrition, mental health and alcohol, communicable diseases, child polio, measles and rubella, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, malaria, international health regulations or environmental health). It also cooperates in strengthening health systems and in resolving crisis situations. The World Health Organization has made a significant contribution to vaccination programmes for children, which have led, for example, to the eradication of smallpox in 1979 and to a 99-percent reduction in polio in recent decades. In the context of the migration crisis, attention is also paid to the issue of tuberculosis in Europe in terms of treatment, multiresistance and vaccination.