[WHO Press Release] WHO has issued new guidance to improve treatment of multidrug resistant TB (MDR-TB). WHO is recommending shifting to fully oral regimens to treat people with MDR-TB. This new treatment course is more effective and is less likely to provoke adverse side effects. WHO recommends backing up treatment with active monitoring of drug safety and […] Continue reading ->
A new report released today by the World Health Organization and the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) found that while overall tuberculosis (TB) mortality and incidence rates have steadily fallen in the European region over the past decade, the disease should not be “underestimated.” The report warns that these rates are not sufficient to reach global targets for reducing the disease, further noting that while the European region may have only 2.8 percent of the world’s TB burden, it has 23 percent of the world’s burden of multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB). Continue reading ->
Bacteria and other pathogens that are resistant to common anti-microbial medications appear to be most abundant in Africa, as well as parts of South-East Asia and other developing regions with a poor record of sewage and sanitation management, according to a new study published in Nature Communications. Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons. Continue reading ->
Severe side effects make the current course of prolonged drug treatment difficult for many patients with Chagas disease, but a Phase II clinical trial in Bolivia may have found an alternative treatment that is both quicker and significantly safer. Image Credits: Ana Ferreira/DNDi. Continue reading ->
As posted by UNAIDS and UNDP in a press release: VIENNA/GENEVA, 15 March 2019—A coalition of United Nations Member States, United Nations entities and leading human rights experts meeting at the Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna, Austria, today launched a landmark set of international legal standards to transform and reshape global responses to the world drug […] Continue reading ->
World Health Organization Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters today that WHO is “working to find a balance between protecting patients and staff from attacks by armed groups and building community trust and ownership” in managing the response to the deadly Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Image Credits: Gabriele François Casini/MSF. Continue reading ->
UNAIDS urged UN member states convening today in Vienna for the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs to enact sweeping reforms of policies towards injecting drug users, most of whom lack critical access to basic “harm reduction” services that could prevent them from becoming infected with HIV. Continue reading ->
The global health benefits of reducing air pollution and reaching the climate targets of the 2015 Paris Agreement could be as “high as $54.1 trillion dollars, at a cost of only $22.1 trillion,” according a new UN Environment analysis, to be released in full tomorrow. Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons. Continue reading ->
Italy’s Minister of Health spoke out publicly today at a press conference in Rome on the proposed World Health Assembly resolution on drug price transparency, while an open letter published on the Ministry’s website called on other World Health Organization member states to support the initiative. Continue reading ->
A extensive new guide released today provides detailed instructions and insight for governments and regions to prevent and combat zoonotic diseases - those that can spread between animals and humans, such as rabies, which continue to have "major impacts" on human health. Continue reading ->