The window to hold global warming below 1.5ºC has closed, and greenhouse gas emissions must nearly halve within a decade to keep the chance of limiting peak warming to 1.8C in reach, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) declared on Wednesday. In its annual Emissions Gap Report, which tracks the gap between where countries’ pledges put […] Continue reading ->
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza –For Faten Youssef Ayyash, the gap between promises and action is measured in an earthen pit. She dug the drainage pit around her tent in Al-Mawasi, a crowded coastal area west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, so that water would not pool around the living quarters for her and her six […] Continue reading ->
BERLIN – As candidates to become WHO director-general squabbled in the halls of the InterContinental, a three-year effort by the Lancet on future health threats delivered a sombre if uncertain warning: There is a chance, however small, that humanity will not survive this century – and we may all die. Two of the extinction threats […] Continue reading ->
Nearly three in four maternal healthcare workers say extreme heat-related complications among pregnant women have increased over the past five years, according to a five-country survey released as climate ministers gathered in Fiji for the last major meeting before COP31. The poll of 1,001 obstetricians, midwives, nurses and other maternity staff in Australia, Brazil, India, […] Continue reading ->
COVID-19 dropped out of the world’s 10 leading causes of death in 2023 for the first time since the pandemic began in 2020, and only two years after it topped the list, according to new World Health Organization estimates released Friday. The virus directly killed an estimated 0.9 million people in 2023, ranking 14th, as […] Continue reading ->
KARAGWE, Tanzania – Maria Mwijage had barely reached the footpath home from the village well when mosquitoes began circling her legs. Overnight rain had filled roadside puddles and cattle hoof prints with stagnant water, turning them into breeding grounds. She brushed the insects away, balanced the yellow jerry can on her head and continued towards […] Continue reading ->
Last week, one phrase — “self-reliance” — did more work in global health than any medicine, as global agencies continue operationalising donor retreats they can no longer disguise. The strategy’s real-world test is unfolding in eastern Congo, where the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak on record is outrunning a struggling response. The institutions of global health spent […] Continue reading ->
The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ebola outbreak is the fastest-growing on record, Africa CDC told its weekly briefing on Wednesday, with confirmed cases up 25% over the past week to 1,759 and deaths reaching 600. The outbreak’s reproductive number is 1.4, meaning every 10 infections lead to roughly 14 more, while the case fatality […] Continue reading ->
A landmark UNICEF report that maps children’s exposure to overlapping climate hazards finds that almost half the world’s children – 1.1 billion kids – now contend with at least three threats at once. To reach school each morning, 15-year-old Lorna first has to swim across the Kemp Welch River, known to locals for its strong […] Continue reading ->
“It wasn’t unusual for shells and missiles to smash through the upper floors, leaving sizeable holes. Every time we were hit, we’d wonder if we should close the hospital.” That is how Dr. Amani Ballour, a Syrian paediatrician and the first female director of a hospital in a Syrian war zone, recalls working in an […] Continue reading ->