The European Commission is preparing more robust youth social media restrictions to protect children from addictive algorithms, following urgent expert warnings and landmark court rulings. But unlike the blanket digital bans imposed in countries such as Australia on everyone under the age of 16, restrictions would be eased gradually as children grow older. As countries […] Continue reading ->
HPV vaccines have transformed cervical cancer prevention, but the next generation of vaccines must better reflect regional disease patterns, including the HPV35 genotype prevalent in Africa.   The recent WHO Global Status Report on Cancer paints a sobering picture. Among the many challenges, human papillomavirus, or HPV, is one of the world’s most serious infectious causes of […] Continue reading ->
A lack of youth online safety is a global public health crisis that demands systemic platform regulation to protect children from harm, according to a joint declaration by the French government and the World Health Organization (WHO). They demand urgent digital governance to mandate safe platform redesigns, as nations struggle to enforce easily bypassed social […] Continue reading ->
The dramatic global health budget cutbacks in services for maternal and reproductive health and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) have produced 17 million unintended pregnancies, and more than 34,000 preventable maternal deaths in just the first year since cuts were made.  That recent assessment by French and Washington DC-based analyses, was cited by Guyana’s UN Ambassador […] Continue reading ->
US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has broadened the terms of the country’s vaccine advisory committee in an apparent move to circumvent a judge’s ruling that his appointees lacked the requisite experience to serve as the country’s immunisation advisors. The new charter for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) was published on the […] Continue reading ->
Universal newborn screening needs to be dramatically expanded to improve infant mortality, says the World Health Organization (WHO). Without intervention, many of the estimated eight million infants born worldwide annually with congenital anomalies face severe impairment or death, warns a new technical report. The WHO report reflects a paradoxical landscape. As low- and middle-income countries […] Continue reading ->
For decades, malaria has been one of Africa’s most persistent health challenges. In Ghana, it was once the leading cause of death for children under five. Bed nets and antimalarial drugs reduced deaths substantially, but by the mid-2010s, the pace of improvement had declined.  Climate change was altering the length and intensity of transmission seasons. […] Continue reading ->