biology

Global Certification Commission

Global Certification Commission is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Global Certification Commission rather than just read about it. In short: The World Health Organization (WHO) created the Global Commission for the Certification of the Eradication of Poliomyelitis (commonly known as the Global Certification Commission or GCC) in 1995 to independently verify the eradication of wild poliovirus. The GCC certified the worldwide eradication of indigenous wild poliovirus type 2 on 20 September 2015, and wild poliovirus type 3 on 17 October 2019.

Key takeaways

Global Certification Commission belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Global Certification Commission to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Global Certification Commission from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The World Health Organization (WHO) created the Global Commission for the Certification of the Eradication of Poliomyelitis (commonly known as the Global Certification Commission or GCC) in 1995 to independently verify the eradication of wild poliovirus. The GCC certified the worldwide eradication of indigenous wild poliovirus type 2 on 20 September 2015, and wild poliovirus type 3 on 17 October 2019. In addition, five of the six World Health Organization Regions certified their status as free of indigenous transmission of all three serotypes of wild poliovirus (types 1, 2, and 3): the Americas in 1994, Western Pacific in 2000, Europe in 2002, Southeast Asia in 2014, and Africa in 2020. Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only remaining polio endemic countries, with polio cases caused by type 1 wild poliovirus reported in 2021. Since 1988, international efforts led by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative have reduced poliomyelitis cases caused by wild poliovirus by over 99.99% using vaccination.

History In the 1980s, Rotary International led a successful campaign to end polio in the Americas with support from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) (for technical assistance, including surveillance), Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)/World Health Organization (WHO) (for coordination and project management), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) (for vaccine procurement), and other funding partners. Demonstration of the potential for eradication by the Americas supported interest in global polio eradication. In 1988, the World Health Assembly, the governing body of the World Health Organization, approved Resolution WHA41.28, which committed to global eradication of poliomyelitis by the year 2000. By 1993, coordination of global activities on polio eradication by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) involved 4 spearheading partners led by the WHO Secretariat - WHO, UNICEF, Rotary International, and CDC - and the GPEI received broad support from world leaders, development agencies, and both public and private donors. The list of core GPEI partners expanded to include the Gates Foundation in 2013 and GAVI in 2020. Following the first regional certification of polio eradication in 1994 by the Americas, the WHO convened the first meeting of the Global Certification Commission in Geneva, Switzerland, on 16–17 February 1995. The commission was initially established as a 13-person board and assigned the responsibility of delineating the criterion for the verification and certification of eradication of the wild poliovirus. The GCC certified the global eradication of wild poliovirus type 2 (WPV2) at its 14th meeting on 20 September 2015. The GCC certified the global eradication of wild poliovirus type 3 (WPV3) at its 20th meeting on 17 October 2019. Wild poliovirus type 1 is the only type of wild poliovirus that remains uninterrupted globally. The GCC held its 21st meeting in July 2021.

Structure The Global Certification Commission is the top-level decision-making body of a three-tier process. Each WHO member state's national polio program appoints a National Certification Committee (NCC). These NCCs meet annually until national certification to report on the status of national polio surveillance and elimination. A country is regarded as polio free or non-endemic if no cases have been detected by high-quality surveillance for a year. The Regional Certification Committees (RCC) meet annually until regional certification to evaluate the reports from the NCCs. The six RCCs, which are panels of WHO-appointed experts who are independent of both the NCCs and the GPEI, are charged with certification of their WHO region. The chairs of the six regional committees comprise the Global Certification Commission, which meets as needed for global decision making.

Regional certification

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Global Certification Commission

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Global Certification Commission claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Global Certification Commission before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Global Certification Commission ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Global Certification Commission

In research: Global Certification Commission appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Global Certification Commission in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Global Certification Commission is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1995 establishments in Switzerland, Medical and health organisations based in Switzerland, Organisations based in Geneva, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Global Certification Commission outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Global Certification Commission in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Global Certification Commission means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Global Certification Commission out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Global Certification Commission in simple terms?

Why does Global Certification Commission matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Global Certification Commission?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Global Certification Commission.