Development Health Advice 

World must be ready to respond to next pandemic: WHO chief

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was delivering his report to the 76th World Health Assembly, the UN agency’s decision-making body, which is meeting this week.  Threat still remains  “The end of COVID-19 as a global health emergency is not the end of COVID-19 as a global health threat,” Tedros told Member States.  “The threat of another variant emerging that causes… Read More
Development Health Advice 

Progress on human health ‘in peril’, warns UN chief

Secretary-General António Guterres was addressing the annual opening of the World Health Assembly, the decision making body of the WHO, and said that the agency was born out of a spirit of cooperation, leading to dramatic improvements in human health. “Global life expectancy – up over 50 percent; Infant mortality – down sixty percent in 30 years; smallpox – eradicated;… Read More
Development Health Advice 

G7 nations, ‘central to climate action’ says Guterres, calling for global reset

The G7, which consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States, together with the European Union, is meeting in the city where the first atomic bomb was dropped in 1945, a place which Secretary-General António Guterres described, as a “testament to the human spirit”. “Whenever I visit, I am inspired by the courage and resilience of the… Read More
Development Health Advice 

Chronic diseases taking ‘immense and increasing toll on lives’, warns WHO

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that the latest World Health Statistics check-up – covering data up to 2022 – “sends a stark message on the threat of noncommunicable diseases, which take an immense and increasing toll on lives, livelihoods, health systems, communities, economies and societies”. The report calls for a substantial increase in investments in health and health systems “to get… Read More
Development Health Advice 

One billion people in 43 countries face cholera risk, amid ‘bleak’ outlook

In a new alert, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that more countries now face outbreaks, increasing numbers of cases are being reported and the outcome for patients is worse than 10 years ago. Killing the poor in plain sight “The pandemic is killing the poor right in front of us,” said Jérôme Pfaffmann Zambruni, Head of… Read More
Development Health Advice 

Untested AI-based tools could harm patients, WHO warns

Cautionary measures normally applied to any new technology are not being exercised consistently with regard to large language model (LLM) tools, which use AI for crunching data, creating content, and answering questions, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned. “Precipitous adoption of untested systems could lead to errors by healthcare workers, cause harm to patients, erode trust in AI, and thereby… Read More
Development Health Advice 

WHO advises against use of artificial sweeteners

New guidelines from the UN health agency released on Monday have advised against using non-sugar sweeteners (NSS). The recommendation from the World Health Organization (WHO) is based on a review of available evidence which suggests that artificial sweeteners do not help control body mass or reduce the risk of weight-related illnesses. Common NSS include acesulfame K, aspartame, advantame, cyclamates, neotame, saccharin,… Read More
Development Health Advice 

Mpox public health emergency declared over

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was speaking to journalists in Geneva, a day after the emergency committee which made the emergency recommendation last July, advised the Director-General to declare it over. ‘Significant challenges’ remain “However, as with COVID-19, that does not mean that the work is over. Mpox continues to pose significant public health challenges that need a robust, proactive and sustainable… Read More
Development Health Advice 

‘Silent emergency’: Premature births claim a million lives yearly

An estimated 13.4 million babies were born premature in 2020, with nearly a million dying from pre-term complications, according to Born too soon: Decade of action on preterm birth. Produced by a range of agencies, including the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO), with its Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH), the report outlines… Read More
Development Health Advice 

WHO chief declares end to COVID-19 as a global health emergency

“Last week, COVID-19 claimed a life every three minutes – and that’s just the deaths we know about”, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, briefing the media at the agency’s headquarters in Geneva. According to WHO’s Coronavirus Dashboard which has collated key statistics since early in the pandemic, the cumulative cases worldwide now stand at 765,222,932, with nearly seven million deaths: the precise figure currently… Read More