The International Sanitary Conferences were a series of 14 international meetings held in response to growing concerns about human disease epidemics. The first of the Sanitary Conferences was organized by the French Government in 1851 to standardize international quarantine regulations against the spread of cholera, plague, and yellow fever. In total 14 conferences took place from 1851 to 1938; the conferences played a major role in the formation of the Office international d'hygiène publique before World War II, and the World Health Organization in 1948.