Recently, I met with African nursing leaders who told me stories of nurses in countries such as Ghana and Nigeria earning the equivalent of only a few hundred US dollars a month – sometimes less than $300 – while being offered opportunities abroad with salaries many times higher. They described a growing crisis, where nurses […] Continue reading ->
As the campaign to elect a new World Health Organization Director-General officially opens, a timeline for the process has been published by outgoing DG Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus for consideration by member states at the upcoming Executive Board in May meeting. While guidelines aim to promote a transparent and level playing field, structural loopholes remain. […] Continue reading ->
Hantavirus has been confirmed in a French citizen evacuated from the MV Hondius cruise ship on Sunday, while two tests on a US citizen turned up one “weakly positive” and one negative result – but it is still unclear how the virus is being transmitted. The evacuation of passengers from the ship, now docked in […] Continue reading ->
A dramatically shrinking World Health Organization (WHO) has seen a slight decline in gender parity amidst restructuring. Strict recruitment policies and targeted job cuts have actively boosted female representation within the organisation’s professional ranks. But deep regional disparities in gender representation remain unresolved, with men holding the overwhelming majority of staff posts in the African, […] Continue reading ->
In January, India’s Supreme Court has ruled that menstrual health is a fundamental right, directing states and schools to take measures to facilitate menstrual health and sanitation. The laws of the world’s most populous country are now in line with the United Nations (UN) stand on menstrual health taken in 2024, and one that is […] Continue reading ->
The United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) announced a “strategic partnership” with Nestlé to establish the World Food Academy 4 Sustainable Food Systems on 26 March. The arrangement incorporates Nestlé’s science and technology seminars, which reached around 7,000 students across over 300 academic institutions in more than 90 countries last year, […] Continue reading ->
The first person suspected of contracting hantavirus outside of passengers on the Hondius cruise ship is currently in a Dutch hospital. She is a flight attendant who came into contact with a former passenger who briefly boarded a KLM flight in Johannesburg, South Africa, but was prevented by airline staff from flying to Amsterdam as […] Continue reading ->
Via The New Humanitarian – On an early morning in February, 23-year-old Suzan Akello was found lying dead on a veranda outside a house she had visited in Namataala, Mbale town, in eastern Uganda. Friends said she could not afford a clinic and had taken herbal medicine to terminate a pregnancy. By the time Akello needed […] Continue reading ->
Two more people linked to the cruise ship Hondius were reported to have fallen ill in Switzerland and France, according to Swiss and European media reports Wednesday. In the Swiss case, the infection and its links to the cruise ship were confirmed by the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health. On the reported French case, […] Continue reading ->
The International Day of the Midwife (May 5) reminds us that safe birth is not a stand-alone event, but part of the broader continuum of sexual and reproductive health and rights Most maternal deaths occur during labour, birth, or shortly after birth. Nearly 290,000 women died during and following pregnancy and childbirth in 2020, with […] Continue reading ->