Clinical immunology as a new specialty in public health: a model for developing countries.

“The extraordinary, rapid development of immunology, with its increasing significance in almost all other branches of the medical sciences, has created new needs with respect to the teaching of this subject in the medical curriculum. ’ ’ This initial paragraph of a 1967 WHO technical report (No. 358) recognized the urgent need to develop medical school teaching programs in immunology. The report also stressed the close link between immunology and clinical disciplines and suggested a model for integrating the work of several specialists within the basic structure of an immunology unit (1). The same report presented the opinion of the British Society for Immunology on this topic and provided examples of immunology programs in several medical schools around the world. In 1971 Whittingham and Mackay (2) wrote their classic treatise on the principles, structure, and functions of a department of clinical immunology within a hospital environment. That same year a WHO expert committee in Geneva described in detail the objectives, structure, and functions of a department of clinical immunology-both for a department operating in a standard medical school or hospital context and for one applying clini-