Five billion people around the world have no protection against industrially produced trans fats (ITFAs), putting them at risk of heart disease and death, the World Health Organization said. ITFAs are responsible for over 500,000 premature deaths from coronary heart disease every year. Commonly found in baked goods, cooking oils, and packaged foods, ITFAs are […] Continue reading ->
At least 300,000 people lose their lives to air pollution each year across the European Union, and the bloc is pushing to tighten air quality regulations as part of its Green New Deal legislative package. The new rules aim to reduce the number of premature deaths and illness caused by air pollution, as well as […] Continue reading ->
Along with a pledge to conserve 30% of the world’s biodiversity, the sweeping new deal reached in Montreal on Monday also etches a way forward to create an open-access platform for sharing gene sequences (digital sequence information) as part of new benefit-sharing arrangements. But some observers worry these policy advances still aren’t keeping up with […] Continue reading ->
A four-year-old asthmatic girl from Ukraine was forced to relocate to a gas station earlier this week where she could connect her ventilator, after a Russian missile attack cut off her city’s electricity supply, leaving her without any other means of receiving life-saving oxygen. Pictures of her frightened, frozen eyes made social media. But according […] Continue reading ->
Spending on health increased worldwide by 6% on average in real terms in the year 2020, according to the World Health Organization’s latest global review of health finance. The analysis found that global spending on health reached US$ 9 trillion in 2020, or 10.8% of global gross domestic product (GDP), but remains highly unequal across […] Continue reading ->
Stronger international rules and cooperation mechanisms on health are at the heart of the European Union’s new global health strategy, which was launched on Wednesday. The strategy is based on three priorities: ensuring that people stay well throughout their lives, strengthening health systems particularly by advancing universal health coverage, and applying a ‘One Health’ approach […] Continue reading ->
Women and girls are more at risk of getting killed at home by intimate partners or family. A new report by UN Women and the UN Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) said that more than five women or girls are killed every hour across the world by their partners or families. The report, released […] Continue reading ->
As the first snows fall across Ukraine, World Health Organization officials in Kyiv warn the coming winter will be “life-threatening for millions” of Ukrainians. At a press conference in Kyiv on Monday, WHO’s European Regional Director Dr Hans Kluge called the Russian airstrikes on Ukraine’s energy and medical infrastructure “the largest attack on health care […] Continue reading ->
A new survey of citizens in 14 WHO member states in the Balkans, Caucasus and Central Asia found that one third of respondents questioned said that their last course of antibiotics was obtained with a medical prescription. This is at least three times more than that reported from a similar survey of 30 European Union […] Continue reading ->
BERLIN – If a new treaty that rewrites the global rules for pandemic response is really approved by the World Health Assembly by May 2024, as planned, that will still only be the beginning of the journey. The new international accord will still have to be ratified by a critical mass of WHO´s 194 member […] Continue reading ->