NEW YORK – While the world’s leaders set new global health goals and appraised existing ones at the United Nations (UN) last week, implementing these noble goals falls on the shoulders of people like midwife Ashu Martha Agbornyenty. Agbornyenty works in poor communities in Cameroon, where the deaths of women and newborn babies are relatively […] Continue reading ->
European air quality activists have won a key victory in the European Parliament, which approved tough new air pollution rules that would require countries to meet stricter WHO air quality guidelines by 2035, and allow EU citizens to sue for financial compensation for air pollution-related health damage. But the draft legislation still faces an uphill […] Continue reading ->
Ahead of next week’s United Nations Summit on the Social Development Goals, a new report asserts that a few simple measures could slash the deaths of mothers and babies A series of relatively simple interventions could save the lives of millions of mothers and babies and put the world on course to achieve the Sustainable […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organiztion (WHO) has been far too slow in providing financial, psychological and legal assistance to victims of sexual assault and exploitation committed by its staff in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) during the 2018-2020 Ebola response, a veteran international investigator said at a WHO press conference on Friday. Hervé Gogo, presenting […] Continue reading ->
PORT-AU-PRINCE – In Haiti, rape has become a weapon of war for gangs. What happens in the hours and days after women and girls are raped can determine their future, but most survivors face insurmountable obstacles before they can start recovering physically and mentally. And that’s if they aren’t raped a second time or third […] Continue reading ->
There have been calls for abortion law reforms in the UK after a woman was sentenced to 28 months in prison on Monday for carrying out an abortion after the legal term limit. The 44-year-old mother of three was sentenced under a law passed in 1861 that carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, sparking […] Continue reading ->
When Elvis Ndikum Achiri, a long-time veteran of tobacco control campaigns, began collecting data on air pollution in his community in Cameroon, he was surprised to discover how many people around him, both young and old, suffered from related illnesses even though they had never smoked – including a beloved high school teacher who had […] Continue reading ->
An impossibly long list of member states lined up to address universal health coverage (UHC) and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) at the World Health Assembly on Thursday afternoon, indicating the centrality of these issues for countries. There was near-universal support for primary health services to be the backbone of UHC, with disease prevention as the other […] Continue reading ->
Zero gains have been made in any region of the world in reducing premature births in the past decade, a major UN report found. In a perfect storm of flatlining progress in maternal and newborn health, preterm birth has become to the leading cause of child mortality worldwide, responsible for the deaths of over one […] Continue reading ->
Two weeks after a Texas judge stirred controversy by banning a popular US abortion pill, WHO’s Director General has explicitly re-affirmed the organization’s support for abortion rights, stating that “women should always have the right to choose when it comes to their bodies and their health”. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ comments came just a day […] Continue reading ->