Hong Kong and London topped the list of 50 cities ranked for their efforts to prevent and address cardiovascular diseases – while Kathmandu and Cairo languished at the bottom. The City Heartbeat Index is a first-of-its-kind initiative of the World Heart Federation (WHF), a Geneva-based non-profit that works on cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention. CVD is […] Continue reading ->
New Delhi’s decades-old regime to control vehicular pollution, including a heavy reliance by commercial vehicles on compressed natural gas (CNG) fuel, has been challenged by a new study by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT).  The report upends the narrative the that CNG is a ‘clean’ fuel, pointing to its high level of health-damaging […] Continue reading ->
A little known, but potentially lethal virus is spreading throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, prompting the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and other health agencies to issue warnings for travelers and clinicians. Oropouche virus, an arbovirus like dengue, Zika, and chikungunya, is spread through certain midge or mosquito bites. Oropouche symptoms are similar […] Continue reading ->
The International Council of Nurses (ICN) has called on the World Health Organization (WHO) to consider a “time-limited moratorium of active recruitment of nurses” from countries on the WHO Health Workforce Support and Safeguard List. This follows a “dramatic surge” in the recruitment of nurses from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) by wealthy countries, according […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization and UNICEF have appealed for ‘humanitarian pauses’ in the grinding Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip in August and September to facilitate a massive polio booster campaign – as three suspected polio cases were being investigated by a Jordanian laboratory. The appeal came as the entire region see-saws between the possibility […] Continue reading ->
Africa has the highest rate of suicide in the world, and the lowest per capita spending on mental health – with critical shortages, in particular, of community health workers and facilities that could help prevent many mental health conditions from becoming even more severe.  Two recent high-profile suicides in Tanzania have cast a stark spotlight […] Continue reading ->