A four-year-old girl from Jerusalem has been diagnosed with polio, Israel’s Health Ministry said Sunday – the first case in the country since 1989. The source of the girl’s infection is vaccine-derived polio virus, according to Israel’s head of Public Services Dr Sharon Alroy-Preis, speaking to reporters on Monday evening. “We are not talking about […] Continue reading ->
By 2030, 20% of women and 14% of men, or over 1 billion people, will be living with obesity globally, according to the new World Obesity Atlas 2022 published Friday. The new Atlas, launched on World Obesity Day, predicts that by that time, the number of people with obesity globally will have doubled since 2010. […] Continue reading ->
Women in Africa will feel the disruptive force of the pandemic for many years to come – with upticks in maternal deaths and prolonged disruptions in maternal, child and reproductive health services issues the continent must grapple with now. About 40% of African countries are reporting continued disruptions to sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and […] Continue reading ->
The United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) will offer certain government-funded coronavirus technologies to WHO’s COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), top US officials said on Thursday. The announcement by US Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra at a virtual meeting Thursday with other ministers of health, could help bolster support for the […] Continue reading ->
The world’s nations have agreed to negotiate a landmark treaty by 2024 to curb plastics pollution which is choking oceans, killing fish and wildlife and polluting water, soils and foods with toxic chemicals. The agreement by some 175 UN member states was reached Wedneaday evening at the United Nations Environment Assembly in Nairobi. It offers […] Continue reading ->
Ahead of World Hearing Day 2022, WHO has issued a new international standard for safe noise levels and hearing at public venues and events. It aims to combat the growing problem of hearing loss from exposure to excessively loud music and other recreational noise. Over 1 billion people aged 12 – 35 risk losing their […] Continue reading ->
Molnupiravir, an oral COVID-19 antiviral medication, has just been added as a conditional recommendation to the World Health Organization’s living guidelines on COVID-19 therapeutics. The pill, created by Merck, had already been approved by the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) in January to be distributed and supplied in 105 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). In comparison […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday appealed for a “humanitarian corridor” to enable it to deliver emergency medical supplies to sick and injured Ukrainians – particularly oxygen, insulin and equipment needed to treat battle wounds. The WHO appeal at a media briefing Wednesday came just hours before the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly approved a […] Continue reading ->
As streams of Ukrainians leave their country to escape from Russian attacks, the World Health Organization (WHO) is concerned that they, and other migrants and refugees, are not being included in programmes to treat critical non-communicable diseases (NCDs), like diabetes, that can be deadly if treatment is not maintained. WHO’s NCD Director Dr Bente Mikkelsen […] Continue reading ->
Two years after the COVID-19 pandemic started, the leaders of the European Union (EU) and African Union (AU) met in Brussels. By then, six million people including 200,000 healthcare workers had died. Yet only one in five healthcare workers in Africa had been vaccinated. This is not good enough. The rollout of COVID-19 vaccines was […] Continue reading ->