Zero gains have been made in any region of the world in reducing premature births in the past decade, a major UN report found. In a perfect storm of flatlining progress in maternal and newborn health, preterm birth has become to the leading cause of child mortality worldwide, responsible for the deaths of over one […] Continue reading ->
BLANTYRE, Malawi – Key Malawian key stakeholders have given the nod for the country to ratify the African Medicines Agency (AMA) treaty, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation has confirmed. The AMA is being established as a specialised agency of the African Union (AU) dedicated to improving access to quality, safe and […] Continue reading ->
February 20, 2020, was the day on which the first COVID-19 case was recorded in Mexico. The infected person was a 35-year-old man from Mexico City, the capital of the Latin American country, who had travelled to Italy. The announcement was made by Hugo López Gatell, epidemiologist and undersecretary of Prevention and Health Promotion of […] Continue reading ->
Four more African countries will be introducing pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) into their routine immunization schedules – as other countries across Africa said they would ramp up and revitalize childhood vaccination programmes that were hit hard by the COVID pandemic. In commitments announced this week at the 2nd Global Forum on Childhood Pneumonia in Madrid […] Continue reading ->
Gaya Gamhewage, the agency’s lead official in prevention and response to sexual misconduct, describes WHO’s recent moves to bring justice to DRC’s victims. In a long-awaited move, the World Health Organization (WHO) is preparing to share files with the Congolese courts on the sexual exploitation and abuse complaints of 13 women who are pursuing criminal […] Continue reading ->
CAPE TOWN – The most advanced biomedical research centre on the African continent has opened in South Africa, boasting state-of-the-art research and training facilities. Stellenbosch University’s Biomedical Research Institute (BMRI) houses over 500 researchers who are examining the genetic and biomolecular basis for diseases afflicting Africans – including Professor Tuilo De Oliveira, renowned for decoding […] Continue reading ->
Nearly a year after his appointment to a second term as WHO’s Director General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has finished a revamp of his senior leadership team – keeping key loyalists in place, while adding new faces that are a clear nod to powerful member states such as China, France and Japan. But the new team […] Continue reading ->
KIGOMA, Tanzania – Mary Akile is still harbouring emotional suffering four years after a rape attack that inflicted both physical pain and untold mental anguish. “I still remember how the attackers invaded my house and raped me, one after another,” says Akile, her voice cracking as she recalled the harrowing ordeal during April 2019 at […] Continue reading ->
The United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk has called on Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni not to promulgate the Anti-Homosexuality Act his country’s Parliament passed on Tuesday night. Describing the Act as “probably among the worst of its kind in the world”, Türk said that, “if signed into law by the president, it […] Continue reading ->
Eight more countries in the global south have dangerously low numbers of healthcare workers in the wake of the COVID pandemic, a new WHO report has found. The World Health Organization’s 2023 report on “Health workforce support and safeguards” found that some 55 countries now rank below the global median in terms of their density […] Continue reading ->