Digital cessation programmes, behavioural support, and medication for tobacco cessation in adults are some of the measures contained in first-ever guidelines to help people quit smoking published recently by the World Health Organization (WHO).  One in five adults – 1.25 billion users worldwide – consume various tobacco products such as  cigarettes, heated tobacco products, water […] Continue reading ->
While a vaccine exists to prevent human papillomavirus (HPV), the main cause of cervical cancer, over 20 therapeutic HPV vaccine candidates are currently in development. These therapeutic vaccines aim to “boost the body’s immune response so that it can either fight and clear high-risk strains of the virus or abnormal ‘precancerous’ cells,” according to the […] Continue reading ->
Following the 77th World Health Assembly (WHA)’s endorsement of a delay of up to one year for finalizing a pandemic agreement, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) is set to resume talks on 16-17 July 2024.  INB member states will face contentious procedural issues and thorny debates over the resolution of substantive matters including a system […] Continue reading ->
A growing body of evidence from India is firmly establishing the country’s toxic levels of air pollution as a leading cause of ill health, particularly non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The results are significant because the country’s politicians have repeatedly questioned the validity of research that links air pollution with reduced life expectancy and worsening health.  As […] Continue reading ->
Fourteen months into its devastating civil war, one-half of Sudan’s 25.6 million population faces levels of food security ranked as “crisis,” emergency, or “catastrophic,” according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis.  The IPC analysis of Gaza also found that a “high and sustained risk” of famine persists across the entire occupied […] Continue reading ->
Human skin can absorb ‘forever chemicals’, University of Birmingham researchers discovered, revealing a new pathway for these toxic substances to enter the body. The finding amplifies health concerns as researchers increasingly detect per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in people worldwide. PFAS are man-made chemicals that persist in nature and human bodies for a millennium before […] Continue reading ->
UNAIDS has welcomed the recent ruling by Namibia’s High Court that its laws prohibiting same-sex acts between men are unconstitutional as they unfairly discriminate against gay men. Namibian citizen Friedel Dausab, supported by the Human Dignity Trust, sought to have laws prohibiting sodomy and “unnatural sex acts” and sections of the Immigration Control Act and […] Continue reading ->