Notes

With the ratification of its Constitution by Mexico and Byelorussia, the WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION on April 7th passed from its status as an Interim Commission to become a Specialized Agency of the United Nations. The action of Mexico and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic made a total of twenty-seven UN members, one more than the required number, which have ratified the WHO Constitution. Accepted by the delegates of sixty-one nations at the International Health Conference in July 1946, the Constitution stipulated that it would 'come into force when twenty-six members of the United Nations have become parties to it' by depositing their ratification documents with the Secretary-General of the United Nations at Lake Success.

The first World Health Assembly will take place at Geneva in June 1948 with delegations from at least thirty-five nations, twenty-seven UN members and eight nonmembers. The WHO becomes the United Nations' ninth Specialized Agency—and the first in which the United States is not a member. France is the other major power which has not yet ratified the WHO Constitution. In the case of the United States, the bill for ratification had already passed the Senate last year and had been unanimously approved in the House Foreign Relations Committee; however, the House of Representatives Rules Committee—by a vote of five to two—tabled the bill, without explanation to the public.