As the Delta variant continues to fuel COVID-19 cases and deaths across the Americas, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) is becoming more proactive in procuring vaccines for its members. PAHO announced this week that its Revolving Fund, which provides access to vaccines at affordable prices, is now open for requests from member states for […] Continue reading ->
International Youth Day – Loneliness, depression, anxiety, substance abuse and job losses. These are some of the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic is weighing on children and young adults who have been isolated from friends, leisure activity and job opportunities by lockdowns and social distancing. Over 1.5 million children have also lost their parents […] Continue reading ->
The 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) is expected to be a pivotal moment in the fight against climate change, bringing leaders together in Glasgow to accelerate progress on global climate action. The event is “the world’s best last chance to get runaway climate change under control,” said the COP26 organisers […] Continue reading ->
More than a year after the start of the global coronavirus pandemic, and the release of openDemocracy’s investigation into childbirth during COVID-19, we know that there have been too many violations of women’s pregnancy and childbirth rights during this crisis, including outright suspensions of services. Too often, the response of governments and health facilities to […] Continue reading ->
Climate change is now an existential health problem overshadowing all others, say scientists in a major report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – the world’s largest and most comprehensive assessment of the state of the planet. Unprecedented changes in the Earth’s climate have been recorded in every region and the world is […] Continue reading ->
Gulshana Bano does not remember her exact age when she got married – probably aged 16 or 17, she recalls. Now 27 years old and 10 years into her marriage, a frail and petite Bano has four children aged between the ages of four and nine with gaps of less than two years between each […] Continue reading ->
Rising global temperatures caused by greenhouse gas emissions could lead to 83 million excess temperature-related deaths by 2100, projects a new study conducted by a researcher at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. The study, published last week in Nature Communications, is one of the first to calculate the mortality impacts of climate change in the kinds […] Continue reading ->
Much more global attention needs to be paid to developing early therapeutics to protect patients with COVID-19 from “hospitalisation, intensive care, or worse”, according to a report from Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) released on Thursday. In addition, the few innovative treatments that exist are mostly available in high-income countries, and DNDi warns that […] Continue reading ->
A new study, conducted by an international group of scientists, found that key indicators of the state of the climate crisis were reaching critical tipping points. The study, published in the journal BioScience, measured some 31 planetary vital signs, ranging from coal, oil, and gas consumption to carbon dioxide emissions to ocean acidity to fossil […] Continue reading ->
More than 700 healthcare workers and patients have died, and more than 2000 have been injured in attacks on health facilities across 17 emergency-affected countries and fragile settings since December 2017, according to a new WHO report released on Tuesday. Countries at risk included Ethiopia, Yemen, Syria, Mozambique, Nigeria, occupied Palestinian territory, Myanmar and the […] Continue reading ->