The UN humanitarian coordination office OCHA, said the deaths and injuries occurred during five separate attacks on health workers – the latest in a recent spate which saw three health workers killed in March during the national polio vaccination effort in Nangahar. Earlier this month, humanitarian workers with the Halo Trust demining group, came under attack in northern Afghanistan,  where extremists… Read More

In a statement coinciding with the launch, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that the health threat was growing, in line with the “mounting ‘tsunami of e-waste’”.  “In the same way the world has rallied to protect the seas and their ecosystems from plastic and microplastic pollution, we need to rally to protect our most valuable resource –the health of our children… Read More

Ten years on from the landmark adoption of the International Labour Organization Convention that confirmed their rights, ILO Director-General Guy Ryder insisted that despite “real progress” in labour laws and social security provision in some countries, these “essential service providers” had rarely been so vulnerable in many others. “These workers lost their jobs in greater numbers or saw their hours of work… Read More

However, while weekly cases are at their lowest since February, “deaths are not falling as quickly”, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), told journalists in Geneva.  “The number of deaths reported last week was similar to the previous week, and the global decline masks a worrying increase in cases and deaths in many countries”, he… Read More

“Equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines represents the clearest pathway out of this pandemic for all of us — children included, and commitments announced by G7 members…are an important step in this direction”, the Executive Director of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Henrietta Fore, said in a statement.  Building on the momentum of the G20 Global Health Summit and the Gavi… Read More

As we strive to heal from the COVID-19 pandemic and reimagine a better future for people and planet, Secretary-General António Guterres introduced this year’s theme: “Recovering better for an equitable and sustainable world.”  Regardless of ethnicity, location or religion, the virus attacks everyone.   Confronting this common enemy, we must remember that we are not each other’s enemy.   To be able… Read More

Speaking via videolink in London, Secretary-General António Guterres said there was no other way of defeating a virus that spreads across developing countries “like wildfire” and risks mutating, other than through equitable, mass vaccination, adding that shots need to be “available and affordable to all”.  “That is not only a matter of fairness and justice but it’s also a question of… Read More