WHO is pleased to announce the release of the 2020 update to the WHO International Classification of Diseases (ICD) 11th Revision. This is an important milestone especially in the context of COVID-19, and proof of efficient functioning of the updating mechanism of ICD-11.
We would like to thank the numerous contributors from the WHO-FIC Network for the ongoing support of our work as well as those who actively worked on the now released translations.
The updates to the ICD-11 are significant, and in addition to the statistical categories, include now more than over 120 000 medical diagnostic terms with codes for COVID-19 accompanying guidance on how to use them.
This revision features updates to the terms of scientific content, technology, usability, utility and participation in particular, medicaments have been extensively updated, histopathology in line with ICD-O 3.2, many more logical definitions to facilitate multiple coding, just to mention a few. The most visible feature is the multilingual browser (and API), translations includeEnglish, Spanish, Arabic and Chinese (forthcoming Russian, French, and any other translated language).
Using ICD ensures interoperability of data for more than a century and is now evolving to operate in our increasingly digital and interconnected world.
Everyone is committed to using ICD-11 for morbidity and mortality reporting from January 2022, and this update reflects over 800 proposals from scientific, policy and early adopter stakeholders. We all have a shared responsibility to ensure our healthcare providers are equipped with high-quality data, from the common cold to the deadliest disease, as we work to ensure health for all.