In a landmark meeting with leading donors, WHO has sought to strengthen partnerships and rally support for more “flexible” funding to fuel the Organization’s US$ 14.1 billion five-year plan of work aiming to improve the health of some 3 billion people worldwide. Image Credits: PAHO/WHO/S. Mey-Schmidt, WHO. Continue reading ->
From healthier diets to medicines access, an unusually broad array of issues were wrapped into this year’s World Health Day theme of Universal Health Coverage (UHC), directly or indirectly – reflecting the complexity of attaining a goal that has become the health sector’s singular call to action this year. Image Credits: WHO. Continue reading ->
Drummers, dancers, and speakers blasting Lady Gaga for a crowd of five hundred people linking hands and doing the wave is not the image typically conjured up when one hears of a World Health Organization event. A crowd gathered beneath a small stage decorated with slogans championing universal health coverage. Despite the morning’s chill lingering […] Continue reading ->
Global life expectancy at birth has increased from 65.5 years in 2000 to 72 years in 2016, a new World Health Organization report has found. But despite this overall improvement, significant disparities persist: life expectancy in low-income countries was 18.1 years lower than in high-income countries in 2016. Image Credits: WHO/J. Holmes. Continue reading ->
A new State of Global Air/2019 report estimates that average life expectancy worldwide is reduced by about a year and eight months due to exposure to current levels of global air pollution. Image Credits: IHME, IHME/HEI, Rashed Shumon. Continue reading ->
[WHO News Release] One in four health care facilities around the world lacks basic water services, impacting over 2 billion people, according to a new report by WHO and UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply, Sanitation and Hygiene (JMP). The WHO/UNICEF JMP report, WASH in Health Care Facilities, is the first comprehensive global assessment of water, […] Continue reading ->
NEW YORK — United Nations members and stakeholders are mobilising to bring about universal health coverage across the world with all eyes on the UN High Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage planned for 23 September. Continue reading ->
In 2015, Sub-Saharan Africans lost 630 million “healthy life years” as a result of sickness and disease, amounting to an estimated loss of $US 2.4 trillion for the region, a new study finds. These economic losses, it says, emphasise the need for increased investment in health financing in Africa to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) […] Continue reading ->
In extended conflicts, “bullets and bombs are not always the deadliest threats to a child’s life,” a new UNICEF report reveals. During such conflicts, children are up to 20 times more likely to die from diarrhoea than violence. As is evidenced by recent outbreaks of cholera in Yemen and Mozambique, conflict and disaster-resilient water, sanitation […] Continue reading ->
Despite high public interest in severe air pollution episodes, the real long-term health impacts of air pollution are rarely discussed by news and social media in South and Southeast Asia, says a new study on public perceptions of the problem in one of the most dangerously polluted areas of the world. Image Credits: Vital Strategies. Continue reading ->