WHO launches global campaign to improve hospital safety

BEIJING. April 7. KAZINFORM. The World Health Organization (WHO) launched a global campaign to improve hospital safety in emergencies here Tuesday on World Health Day; Kazinform refers to Xinhua.

The campaign aims to protect hospitals, health facilities and the staff, patients and visitors who use them, from all emergencies including natural disasters, conflict and disease outbreaks. "When an emergency or disaster occurs, most lives are lost or saved in the immediate aftermath of the event," Dr Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General, said in a statement for the World Health Day2009 posted on the WHO Web site. To commemorate World Health Day this year, WHO is advocating a series of best practices that can be implemented, in any resource setting, to make hospitals safe during emergencies. Apart from safe locations and resilient construction, good planning and carrying out emergency drills in advance can help maintain critical functions, Chan said. In 2008, a total of 321 natural disasters killed 235,816 people -- a death toll that was almost four times higher than the average annual total for the seven previous years, according to the United Nations Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNSDR). The increase was due to cyclone Nargist, which left nearly 138,000 people dead or missing in Myanmar, and a major earthquake in southwestern China's Sichuan Province, in which more than 80,000 people were killed or missing, according to the UNSDR; Kazinform cites Xinhua. Full version you can see at www.news.xinhuanet.com