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 ->
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 ->
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 ->
Nearly half the world’s population lives in climate danger zones, according to the latest United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, which UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described as “an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment on failed climate change leadership”. “Many ecosystems are at the point of no return now, and […] Continue reading ->
The past 10 days have seen a flurry of new US initiatives to meet the World Health Organizations target of vaccinating 70% of the global population – including a new Global Action Plan; involvement of PEPFAR networks to strengthen health system response; and most recently, a special US thrust in Nigeria, the continent’s most populous nation. […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization said it had released $3.5 million to support delivery of urgent medical supplies to the people of Ukraine, after Russia invaded the country on three fronts simultaneously early Thursday morning. Meanwhile, WHO’s European Regional Office called for an end to hostilities saying: “any further escalation could result in a humanitarian catastrophe […] Continue reading ->
Within one year, Africa has gone from waiting for its first COVID-19 vaccine shipment from the WHO-supported global COVAX facility to having excess doses available that some countries are struggling roll out efficiently. Reflections on the first anniversary of the massive COVAX vaccine rollout. On 24 February 2021, Health Policy Watch reported the global COVAX […] Continue reading ->
ISLAMABAD – The timing couldn’t have been worse. On the same day that Bill Gates, completed his maiden visit to Pakistan to cheer on the country’s progress towards polio eradication, WHO and Malawi health authorities announced that a small child thousands of kilometers away in Malawi had been ill with polio – infected by a […] Continue reading ->