Health workers, patients and civilians have been held hostage at the Mariupol regional intensive care hospital in Ukraine by Russian troops since Monday morning, according to the Media Initiative for Human Rights (MIHR). Russian soldiers are using the hospital as a base to attack Ukrainian forces, and using the hostages as “human shields” according to […] Continue reading ->
With fewer than 1% of its 90 million citizens vaccinated against COVID-19, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has resorted to training teams of “rumour-busters” to tackle misinformation about the virus in order to encourage more people to get the vaccine. David Olela, communications lead for the DRC health ministry’s vaccination programme,  admits that his […] Continue reading ->
The mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines do not harm in vitro fertilization (IVF) success rates, according to a recent study, countering disinformation that vaccines could negatively affect fertility. In contrast, the SARS-CoV2 virus has been found to negatively affect the quality of embryos for couples who are undergoing IVF treatments and sperm. The peer-reviewed study, published in […] Continue reading ->
Amid rising hunger due to COVID-19, conflict and climate change, the African Union (AU) has declared 2022 as the Year of Nutrition. Before 5am, Nigerian fishermen living in Lagos’s floating slum, Makoko, have paddled their wooden boats several kilometers into the main river for fishing activities. Their harvests are largely influenced by how far out […] Continue reading ->
A maternity and children´s hospital in the southern Ukranian city of Mariupol was bombed Wednesday, reportedly injuring 17 people, while WHO warned that Ukrainians who manage to escape direct injury in Russian bombings and shellings face hypothermia, frostbite and respiratory diseases, as well as conflict-related trauma – while the lack of access to treatment for […] Continue reading ->
Commercialising the health sector and leaving healthcare up to the markets is “dangerous” and “really amoral” the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the launch of a brief on measuring value in the economy on Tuesday.  The policy brief, produced by the WHO Council on the Economics of Health for All, […] Continue reading ->