The World Health Day is celebrated every year on 7 April (Image: Flag of WHO, Wiki Commons)
The World Health Day is celebrated every year on April 7 under the guidance and sponsorship of the World Health Organization (WHO). (Image: Flag of WHO, Wiki Commons)Wiki Commons

The World Health Day is celebrated every year on 7 April, under the guidance and sponsorship of the World Health Organization (WHO).

In 1948, the first World Health Assembly was held which decided to celebrate 7 April of each year as the World Health Day, with effect from 1950.

The day is held to mark WHO's founding and is often seen as a day for the organization to draw attention to the subjects of major importance to global health.

Each year, the WHO organizes international, regional and local events on the day, in relation to a particular theme. In 2012, the theme was "Good health adds life to years" and last year it was "Healthy heart beat, healthy blood pressure".

The theme for 2014's World Health Day is "Vector-borne diseases". The theme, also dubbed by the WHO as "Small bite, big threat", will highlight dangers and threats from some of the most commonly known vectors - such as mosquitoes, sand flies, bugs, ticks and snails.

These agents are often known to transmit a wide range of parasites and pathogens that can cause illnesses. For instance, Malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes and it is considered the most deadly vector-borne disease. Malaria is thought to cause an estimated 660,000 deaths worldwide annually.

WHO has also posted a video that highlights simple measures we should take to protect ourselves:

Let us mark this year's World Health Day, by recollecting some of the best quotes and lines about health, illness, wellness and well-being.

1. The greatest wealth is health - Virgil

2. I reckon being ill as one of the great pleasure of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better - Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh, 1903

3. Life expectancy would grow by leaps and bounds if green vegetables smelled as good as bacon - Doug Larson

4. Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity - World Health Organization, 1948.

5. Eat right, exercise regularly, die anyway - Unknown Author

6. Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing - Redd Foxx

7. A sad soul can kill you quicker than a germ - John Steinbeck

8. In order to change we must be sick and tired of being sick and tired - Unknown

9. If I'd known I was going to live so long, I'd have taken better care of myself - Leon Eldred

10. Joy and Temperance and Repose/ Slam the door on the doctor's nose - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

11. Sickness comes on horseback but departs on foot - Dutch Proverb

12. A good laugh and a long sleep are the best cures in the doctor's book - Irish Proverb

13. The I in illness is isolation, and the crucial letters in wellness are we - Unknown

14. Sickness is the vengeance of nature for the violation of her laws - Charles Simmons

15. When you are young and healthy, it never occurs to you that in a single second your whole life could change - Anette Funicello

16. Early to bed and early to rise makes man healthy, wealthy and wise - 18th Century proverb

17. The hospitals and graveyards are filled with those who refused to acknowledge the virtues of physical morality - Dr Ron Spallone

18. Gold that buys health can never be ill spent - Thomas Dekker, Westward Ho, 1604

19. Sometimes I get the feeling that aspirin companies are sponsoring my headaches - Terri Guillemets

20. It takes more than just a good looking body. You've got to have the heart and soul to go with it - Epictetus.

Photo credit: Wiki Commons (Edited by Vishnuprasad S Pillai)