Fifty Years of Synergy between Health and Rights

ifty years ago, World Health Organization was founded on basis of a Constitution which projects a vision of health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being a definition of health that is more relevant today than ever. It recognizes that the enjoyment of highest attainable standard of health is one of fundamental rights of every human being and that governments have a responsibility for health of their peoples which can be fulfilled only by provision of adequate health and social measures. On fiftieth anniversary of Universal Declaration of Human Rights a document that sets out conditions necessary for health world continues to confront complex and difficult challenges with serious consequences for health and for human rights. As we seek new approaches to prevent and mitigate impact of unevenly distributed burden of known communicable and noncommunicable diseases, new threats to our physical, mental and social wellbeing continue to emerge. The expanding prevalence of microbial resistance to drugs (as is case for tuberculosis and malaria); newly discovered infectious agents (such as those responsible for hemorrhagic fevers); increasing recognition of negative and long lasting consequences of violence in its various forms; and many of health issues linked to risk-taking behaviors (such as unprotected sex, and alcohol, tobacco and illicit drug use) force us to query both evolving meaning of health and reasons why conditions necessary for its attainment have not been met. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in particular its explicit attention to discrimination, affords us a convenient framework to recognize, examine and address these conditions.