The Constitution of the World Health Organisation (WHO) was adopted by the International Health Conference conference held in New York from June 19th to July 22nd of 1946 and signed on July 22, 1946 by the representatives of 61 States (Countries) (Off. Rec. Wld Hlth Org., 2, 100). The Constitution came into force two years later on April 7, 1948 and so the WHO officially began. [1, 2]
Prior to this, the proposal to convene an international conference for the establishment of a new worldwide health organization originated at the 1945 San Francisco United Nations Conference on International Organization (which would become the United Nation).
Dr Szeming Sze, a prominent Chinese medical expert, who was educated at Cambridge, and worked in both UK and US, was instrumental in the creation of the WHO. His father, Dr. Alfred Sao-ke Sze (施肇基, Zhaoji Shi), was China’s ambassador to Great Britain, the first Chinese ambassador to the United States (1935) and at the end of WW1 signed treaties as the “President of the Chinese Republic” , he was a diplomat.
As China’s delegate, Dr Szeming Sze “conferred” with Dr. Karl Evang of Norway and Dr. Geraldo de Paula Souza of the Brazil, (the only other medical professionals in attendance) on creating an international health organization under the auspices of the new United Nations.
After failing to get a resolution passed on the subject, Alger Hiss, the secretary general of the conference, recommended using a declaration to establish an international conference on health, Sze and other delegates “lobbied” and the declaration was passed. Sze followed this through to WHO’s creating, but went to work for the United Nations, not the WHO, in 1954 [after CCP came to rule] he was appointed medical director of the United Nations! [3, 4]
The UN then held the International Health Organization conference from June 19 to July 22, 1946 at the Henry Hudson Hotel in New York city. Prior to this, the Technical Preparatory Committee for the International Health Conference, met in Paris on February 15, 1946 to prepare for the conference and produced a draft constitution report. This report was adopted on June 11, 1946 by the Economic and Social Council and then presented to the conference delegation from there it was signed into July 22, 1946. The Conference’s technical committee suggested the name “World Health Organization”. [5]
Dr Sze’s electronic correspondence HERE