Category: Health Advice

On Wednesday, David Gressley, the UN Ebola Emergency Response Coordinator, and Dr. Ibrahima Socé Fall, Assistant Director-General for Emergency Response at the World Health Organization (WHO), released a joint statement announcing that they are “working intensively” to halt any further spread. Surveillance is being stepped up at all entry and exit points in the area, but more needs to be… Read More

“This Ebola response is far more complex because it is in an active conflict zone,” Jerome Pfaffmann, a UNICEF health specialist, told reporters in Geneva, just back from his third visit to the country.  He underscored that “people in the (eastern Congolese) provinces of North Kivu and Ituri are facing humanitarian and public health crises,” and in addition, half the health facilities in Ituri had been damaged or destroyed over the last… Read More

With five billion people today – four times more people than a decade ago – living in countries that have introduced smoking bans, graphic warnings on packaging and other effective tobacco control measures, many governments are making progress in the fight against tobacco.   But a new WHO report out on Friday shows many countries are still not adequately implementing policies, including helping… Read More

A new study by WHO, published on Friday in Lancet Global Health, found that investing $6 billion per year in eliminating hepatitis in 67 low- and middle-income countries would avert 4.5 million premature deaths by 2030, and more than 26 million deaths beyond that target date.   A total of $58.7 billion is needed to eliminate viral hepatitis as a public health threat in these 67 countries… Read More

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), initial studies had highlighted a possible link between DTG and birth defects of the brain and spinal cord, that cause conditions like spina bifida in infants born to women who used the drug at the time of conception. This safety concern came from a May 2018 study in Botswana, that found four cases… Read More

UN stands in solidarity with Japan following deadly arson attack at leading animation studio in Kyoto UN chief António Guterres said on Friday he was “deeply saddened” at the death of at least 33 people inside a popular Japanese animation studio, in the city of Kyoto, following an arson attack that constitutes one of the worst mass-killings in the nation’s history.  Japanese police… Read More

“There is no other time more critical to children’s lives than their earliest years”, said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director, “which is why we need a transformative shift in how businesses and governments invest in policies and practices that not only support healthy brain development, but also strengthen the bond between parents and their children – and reap huge economic… Read More

DR Congo Ebola outbreak now a Public Health Emergency, UN health agency declares The second worst Ebola outbreak of all time, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), was officially declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on Wednesday, with the head of the World Health Organization calling for countries to ‘take notice and redouble our efforts”. With… Read More

Ending AIDS is possible if we focus on people, not diseases Gunilla Carlsson, acting Executive Director of UNAIDS The news comes in a new UNAIDS report, Communities at the centre, launched on Tuesday at a community event in Eshowe, South Africa, which also shows that the global resources available for the AIDS response have declined “significantly”, by nearly $1 billion.… Read More

Number of hungry people rising globally More people are going hungry around the world, a new UN report, the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2019, revealed on Monday. The news means that achieving the Zero Hunger target of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, will be an “immense challenge”. This year’s report, which… Read More