gencies such as occurred in the Congo, sends operating staffs to maintain basic health services (see page 182).83

The malaria eradication program encountered setbacks in some areas in 1963 because of administrative and technical difficulties, yet substantial progress was made. At the end of September 1963, 71 percent of the 1,500 million people for whom statistics were available, and who had been living under malaria risk were now protected against this disease. For several years the United States has made substantial voluntary contributions to support this program. It is now financed largely from the regular budget of the WHO (see part V, page 353) 83 and by funds allocated by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF-see page 230) for supplies and equipment. The U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) has coordinated its bilateral assistance in this campaign with that of the WHO.

The smallpox danger was signalized in 1963 by the introduction of this disease through international traffic from endemic areas into countries normally free from the disease. In assisting countries to combat this problem, the WHO emphasized the importance of mass vaccination campaigns not only for the protection of individuals against smallpox but as the means of eradicating it.

In 1963, 57 countries received WHO assistance in developing water supply systems in urban areas. The United States has made voluntary contributions to enable the WHO to provide the necessary technical assistance to countries in developing plans for self-sustaining community water supply systems. By virtue of these contributions, the organization has stimulated greater activity on the part of individual governments to obtain adequate water supplies. As in the case of malaria eradication, the organization's work in this field is now financed in the main from the regular budget.

While putting emphasis on activities that serve the common needs of many countries, the WHO has also responded to requests from governments for assistance in coping with other problems that are equally serious in individual countries. Hence, the work of the WHO covers a wide range of subjects. During the year the WHO cooperated with more than 125 governments in at least 800 health projects for the control of communicable diseases such as leprosy, yaws, cholera, plague, trachoma, smallpox, and tuberculosis; and for medical education; the training of nurses; and the promotion of maternal and child health. For example, during 1963, the WHO carried out a study of the nature and extent of leprosy in the Katmandu Valley of Nepal and recommended measures to control the disease; a trachoma control project was started in the Republic of China; and a rural environmental sanitation pilot project was begun in West Irian. A tuberculosis center was opened in Libya to train staff and to establish techniques for a national control program.

The AID collaborated in several WHO projects. It helped with the bilharziasis control project in the Philippines, a water supply program for Monrovia, Liberia, and a public health survey in Korea.

The WHO devoted about 40 percent of its funds in 1963 to activities of a long-range character to develop and to strengthen health services at the national and local level. The organization's activities for this purpose were largely devoted to education and training. From December 1, 1962, to September 20, 1963, the WHO awarded 1,600 fellowships. Many of these fellows received their training in the United States. The WHO provided assistance to medical schools and to governments in public health administration and national health planning. The United States provided technical experts for temporary duty with the WHO and entered into arrangements with the WHO to assist in the development of national health plans in specific

countries.

An important element of the WHO's work is to serve as a channel of communication on technical and scientific information relating to medicine and public health. The organization's activities in the field of international quarantine, including notifications of the outbreak of epidemic diseases, served to protect member states from the spread of communicable diseases.

Health statistics are collected and information on health conditions throughout the world is made available to all member states. Pursuant to a resolution adopted by the 16th World Health Assembly, which met in May 1963, the WHO took the initial steps to establish a system whereby individual countries warn others of adverse reactions of various drugs. Member governments have been requested to communicate immediately to the WHO any decisions by their governments to prohibit or limit in any way the use of a drug or to refuse approval of a new drug as a result of serious adverse reactions, so that this information may be disseminated to WHO members.

The Assembly also approved a further increase in the regular budget for increased activity in medical research and dissemination of the results throughout the world. The United States has always been one of the foremost supporters of the research program and has contributed generously to the Voluntary Fund for Medical Research. In 1963, Dr. Luther Terry, Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service, noted at the World Health Assembly that the WHO Director General had suggested four new fields of research-immunology, drug evaluation, microchemical contamination of the environment, and human reproduction. The U.S. Surgeon General said that all of these were important but there were insufficient funds to undertake all four simultaneously. Because of these circumstances, he proposed that the U.S. contribution be used for the development of a research unit in human reproduction. Knowledge about the basic physiology of human reproduction, Dr. Terry said, would in time benefit thousands of sterile couples and might prevent crippling and retardation of hundreds of thousands of babies. The United States pledged a contribution of $500,000 for this purpose. In his speech announcing the contribution, he said that the United States had made annual contributions to this research Fund and he was gratified with the progress which had been made.

In addition to official records, which embody the decisions and deliberations of the WHO, and such periodical publications as the Weekly Epidemiological Record, the organization also published in 1963, inter alia, a World Directory of Veterinary Schools; Second Report on the World Health Situation, 1957-1960; a comparative survey of legislation on air pollution in 13 countries in the Digest of Health Legislation; and a public health paper on medicine and public health in the Arctic and Antarctic.

The total expenditure of funds in 1963 for the WHO activities amounted to approximately $58 million. Of this amount, $31 million came from the WHO regular budget; the remaining $27 million was made available by voluntary contributions to the WHO, funds from the United Nations Expanded Fund for Technical Assistance (EPTA), and funds from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), including those from PAHO voluntary contributions. The U.S. contribution to the regular budget amounted to 31 percent of the total. The United States contributed 40 percent of the EPTA total funds and 66 percent of those of PAHO, in addition to the voluntary funds contributed for malaria eradication, medical research, and community water supply programs.

U.S. nationals from the Public Health Service and other Federal agencies, state and local health services, universities, and research. institutions participated in the WHO programs. About 125 U.S. nationals were appointed consultants and assigned to one or more of the WHO advisory projects for periods varying from 3 weeks to a year.

More than 325 U.S. nationals were serving on one or more of the 40-odd expert panels whose members are consulted by the WHO in regard to their technical specialties.

During 1963, U.S. nationals participated in 9 of the 10 expert committees convened to assess the importance to the programs of the WHO of new technical knowledge. U.S. nationals also participated in most of the 30 meetings of scientific groups which were called by the Director General to advise on specific aspects of the research.

program.

The United States was represented at the 16th World Health Assembly by a delegation headed by the Surgeon General of the United States. Dr. James Watt, Assistant Surgeon General, was the U.S. delegate to the WHO Regional Committee for the Western Pacific which was held in Port Moresby, New Guinea, in 1963, and to the meeting in Washington, D.C., of the Directing Council of PAHO, which serves as the Regional Committee for the Americas.

Dr. Watt attended the January 1963 session of the WHO Executive Board and served on its Standing Committee of Administration and Finance, which reviewed the Director General's program and budget proposals for 1964. He also attended the May meeting of the Executive Board which convened following the World Health Assembly to execute decisions requiring prompt action.

Membership in the WHO reached 120 in 1963 with the admittance of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Uganda as members, and,

Kenya and Mauritius as associate members. Dr. M. C. Candau from Brazil, who has served as Director General for the past 10 years, was elected in May by the World Health Assembly to serve for an additional 5-year period.

THE WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION

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ACTIVITIES OF THE WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION DURING 1963: Annual Report of the President (Johnson) to the Congress on U.S. Participation in the U.N., Transmitted August 20, 1964 (Excerpt)84

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) held its Fourth Congress in Geneva in April 1963. The effect on the atmospheric sciences of the rapidly moving developments with regard to outer space was a major concern at this Congress. In one of his opening statements to the Congress, Dr. F. W. Reichelderfer, Chief of the U.S. Weather Bureau and chairman of the U.S. delegation, called upon the organization to bear in mind the improvements to be achieved through the use of satellites in bridging the long standing gaps in networks of meteorological stations and telecommunications. He reminded the WMO Congress of the expanded concept of meteorology set forth in the two resolutions approved by the U.Ñ. General Assembly in 1961 and 1962, respectively,85 and the importance of the WMO in accepting its responsibilities in such fields as training and research relating to the utilization of satellite information as well as conventional data.

Considerable attention was given to the concept of the World Weather Watch, as originally developed by the late Dr. Harry Wexler of the U.S. Weather Bureau, which projected the establishment of regional centers, extensive use of weather information from satellites, and a much more efficient telecommunications system. The fourth Congress took positive steps for a vigorous start on this program, which included studies of the most efficient organization of facilities for communications, the analysis of the world weather system, and the training of meteorologists to use weather information from satellites.

Closely related to the use of satellites was the problem of the implementation of a worldwide network of conventional reporting stations required to supplement information received from weather satellites.

84

85

U.S. Participation in the UN, pp. 304–306.

Texts in American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1961, pp. 1202–1205, and ibid., 1962, pp. 1348–1352.

A planning unit established in the WMO secretariat was given the responsibility of insuring that there will be systematic and orderly development in the international meteorological and atmospheric research programs.

In order to further the program in atmospheric research, an Advisory Committee was established by the WMO Congress consisting of 12 highly qualified scientists and experts selected in consultation with the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU). The United States was represented on the Committee by Dr. Walter O. Roberts, Director of the National Center of Atmospheric Research, and by Dr. George B. Cressman of the U.S. Weather Bureau. This Committee will assist the organization to keep up with the rapidly moving advances in the atmospheric sciences and their effects on both the operational and research fields, and will insure maximum coordination with nongovernmental scientists.

In accordance with two resolutions adopted by the 16th and 17th U.N. General Assemblies in 1961 and 1962, respectively, the WMO had been invited, in consultation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA-see page 309) 86 and the U.N. Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR-see page 239),86 to examine urgently the feasibility of using meteorological networks for the measurement of atmospheric radiation and to arrange for the day-to-day exchange of this information. A plan was authorized by the Fourth Congress for the exchange of such data. In addition, a program of joint WMO/UNSCEAR symposia on atmospheric movements of radioactive materials was approved. A panel of experts on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy was reestablished by the WMO, and Dr. Lester Machta of the U.S. Weather Bureau was appointed to serve on this group.

In view of the large number of meteorological stations in the Antarctic and the special need for coordination of meteorological programs for that area, the WMO Congress authorized the establishment of a standing committee made up of representatives of the 12 signatory states of the Antarctic Treaty.

88

The WMO stressed the potential importance of the International Decade for Scientific Hydrology as a large-scale program for the development and promotion of the science of hydrology. A major role for the WMO in this program was approved in cooperation with UNESCO (see page 290), the International Association of Scientific Hydrology, and other international organizations concerned. Max Kohler of the U.S. Weather Bureau, as President of the WMO's Commission for Hydrometeorology, has taken an active part in formulating the organization's policies in the field of water resources.

The Congress agreed upon the establishment of a $1,500,000 development fund to assist member states, particularly in the implementa

8 Of the source text.

"See post, doc. X-98.

88

Text in American Foreign Policy: Current Documents, 1961, pp. 452-458. "Of the source text.