Margaret Chan Country Quotations

Doctors and nurses, with their training and their experiences, they would be able to detect unusual patterns of disease. That's why we say it is important for every country to have a proper surveillance system. The function of the surveillance system is to detect unusual patterns of diseases.

HIV AIDS is a disease with stigma. And we have learned with experience, not just with HIV AIDS but with other diseases, countries for many reasons are sometimes hesitant to admit they have a problem.

Influenza pandemics must be taken seriously, precisely because of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world.

All countries should immediately now activate their pandemic preparedness plans. Countries should remain on high alert for unusual outbreaks of influenza-like illness and severe pneumonia.

If the country has invested in the training of doctors or nurses or midwives for that matter, people are beginning to say, 'Should we not ask them to serve a number of years in the country who invested in their training?' I think this is now coming to be an interesting discussion.

The Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, and the related Accra Agenda for Action, are useful policy instruments that set out the mutual responsibilities of donors and recipient countries.

WHO has a country office in nearly every developing country, usually located close to the Ministry of Health. Staff in these offices need to do much more to help ministries of health strengthen their national health plans and strategies and then negotiate with development partners to support these priorities and follow these plans.

We must understand that when one country is not safe, the world is not safe. Pandemic influenza, by nature, will go around the world, so it is important for us to work as an international community to get a better handle on the issue.

Maternal mortality health is a very sensitive indicator. All you need to look at is a country's maternal mortality rate. That is a surrogate for whether the country's health system is functioning. If it works for women, I'm sure it will work for men.

A severe disease that transmits easily will leave very little international surge capacity as most countries will need their own staff and resources to combat the outbreak in their territories.