Executive Summary

WHO Member States face increasing numbers of emergencies with health consequences from all hazards, including infectious disease outbreaks, conflicts, natural disasters, chemical or radio-nuclear spills and food contamination. Many emergencies can be complex, with more than one cause,
and can have significant public health, social, economic and political impacts.

WHO has specific responsibilities and accountabilities for emergency operations under the International Health Regulations (IHR) (2005) and within the global humanitarian system as the Interagency Standing Committee (IASC) Global Health Cluster Lead Agency.

These responsibilities begin with early detection and risk assessmentor situation analysis of a public health event or emergency, describedin chapter 1. Events or emergencies requiring an operational response by WHO are referred for grading, described in chapter 2. This chapter describes the grading process, definitions of various grades, criteria for grading, and steps to remove a grade. WHO uses three levels of emergency grades; emergencies that continue for more than six months may be defined as protracted crises, which also have three grades.

WHO’s operational response to emergencies is managed through application of the Incident Management System (IMS), described in chapter 3. The IMS is based on recognized best practices of emergency management and is increasingly used by emergency management systems globally, including within the health sector.

WHO’s critical functions for emergency response under the IMS are: Leadership; Partner coordination; Information and planning; Health operations and technical expertise; Operations support and logistics; and Finance and administration.

Chapter 4 describes WHO’s Performance Standards for emergency response, and the key performance indicators used to measure performance. The Organization’s emergency response procedures are laidout in tables in chapter 5.