Health & Well Being

Millions of Lives in Peril in the Greater Horn of Africa

UN Health Agency Calls for USD 123.7 million Until December 2022

By Jaya Ramachandran

GENEVA | NAIROBI (IDN) — The UN health agency, World Health Organization (WHO), has launched a funding appeal for USD 123.7 million to carry out urgent life-saving work in the greater Horn of Africa. The region also faces an unprecedented food crisis.

More than 80 million people in the seven countries spanning the region—Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda—are estimated to be food insecure. Over 37.5 million people are classified as being in IPC phase 3, a stage of crisis where people have to sell their possessions in order to feed themselves and their families, and where malnutrition is rife.

: Jaya Ramachandran; SUSTAINABILITY; Health & Well Being; 04 August 2022

Photo: Floods in Ilheus, Bahia, Brazil in December 2021. Credit: Camila-Souza-GOVBA / WMO Report

Climate Change and COVID-19 Playing Havoc in Latin America and the Caribbean

Viewpoint by Mario Cimoli

The writer is the Deputy Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

SANTIAGO, Chile (IDN) — The Latin America and the Caribbean region is home to some of the widest biodiversity on the planet. From Caribbean marine and coastal oases to the Amazon rainforest and down to the southern-most reaches of Patagonia, the region is filled with natural wealth.

: Opinion Editor; THE WORLD; Latin America & the Caribbean; 29 July 2022

Image Credit: GIZ, Photo by Schmoo Theune.

Can Businesses Fill in The Gaps Left by WHO?

Viewpoint by Christian Jahn

The writer is Executive Director of the Inclusive Business Action Network (iBAN).

BONN (IDN) — In September 1978, the member states of the World Health Organization adopted the Alma-Ata Declaration, officially establishing the goal of ‘health for all’ by the year 2000. The declaration was the first to recognise the need for urgent action to ensure access to primary health care for all people and call for governments to establish strategies for a better, healthier world.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 19 July 2022

Image: Celeste Lucero, the WHONET-Argentina (WHONET-ARG) Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Surveillance Network's coordinator, is reading the results of susceptibility testing. Credit: WHO / Sarah Pabst

WHO Calls for Equitable and Global Access to Bacterial Medicines

By Jaya Ramachandran

GENEVA (IDN) — In the first-ever “analysis of bacterial vaccines in preclinical and clinical development: 2021”, the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for “equitable and global access to the vaccines that already exist, especially among populations that need them most” because of limited resources at their disposal.

This report is part of the WHO efforts to inform sustainable investment in research and development of new medicines, diagnostic tools, and other interventions to control AMR (antimicrobial resistance).

: Jaya Ramachandran; SUSTAINABILITY; Health & Well Being; 14 July 2022

Nigerian Pop Star Takes Down Air Pollution in Latest Hit

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) — Grammy-award winner Damini Ogulu, popularly known as Burna Boy, has picked a smoking topic for his latest record dubbed “Whiskey”.

“Port Harcourt residents dem no dey breathe fresh air, my people! When you wake up in the morning, you cough black soot,” the song begins.

: Global Information Network; THE WORLD; Africa; 11 July 2022

Rise in World Population Derails UN’s Sustainable Development Goals

By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS (IDN) — The UN’s 17 heavily-promoted Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have long been undermined by the three-year-old Covid-19 pandemic and the devastation caused to the world economy by the after-effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

But now a third factor is threatening to derail the implementation of the SDGs: a projected rise in world population which is expected to reach 8 billion by November this year, according to the latest figures in a new UN report titled “World Population Prospects 2022” released July 11 by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).

: Thalif Deen; UN INSIDER; 11 July 2022

Photo source: The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022

SDG Roadmap is the Way Forward in the Face of Global Crises

By Caroline Mwanga

NEW YORK (IDN) — The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022 of the United Nations says the climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic and an increased number of conflicts around the world have placed the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in jeopardy.

The report, released on July 7, highlights the severity and magnitude of the challenges, with these cascading and intersecting crises creating spin-off impacts on food and nutrition, health, education, the environment, and peace and security, and affecting all the SDGs, the blueprint for more resilient, peaceful and equal societies.

: Caroline Mwanga; SUSTAINABILITY; Health & Well Being; 10 July 2022

Can Millions of Lives be Saved by a Plastic Box? We think so.

By Susie Schaefer, CEO, Smile Train and Kris Torgeson, CEO, Lifebox

NEW YORK (IDN) — If you've ever needed to undergo surgery in your life, chances are you've encountered a small but ultimately forgettable device that, unbeknownst to you, played an outsized role in your survival. That tool, which costs less than a pair of Bluetooth earbuds and is about the size of a phone, is the pulse oximeter.

: Opinion Editor; OPINION; 08 July 2022

Photo source: Global Information Network

Ghana Cracks Down on LGBTQIA+ Community Despite Opposition

By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network

NEW YORK (IDN) — Legislators in Ghana with unapologetic support from President Nana Akufo-Addo have come up with a new law making life even harder for LGBTQIA+ persons in the West African country, a bill which essentially strips the community of all human rights.

Dubbed the “most homophobic document the world has ever seen”, the 36-page Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill 2021, which is yet to be considered by parliament, would criminalize LGBTQIA+ activities in the religious West African country.

: Global Information Network; SUSTAINABILITY; Health & Well Being; 04 July 2022

Photo: Presentation of the UN World Drug Report 2022, with UNODC Research Officer Dr Thomas Pietschmann on the extreme right. Credit: UN Correspondents Association Vienna.

Conflict Zones as Magnets for Synthetic Drug Production

Growing Capacity to Manufacture Amphetamine in Ukraine

By Aurora Weiss

VIENNA (IDN) — Nearly 284 million people aged 15-64 used drugs worldwide in 2020, a 26 per cent increase over the previous decade. Young people are using more drugs, with use levels today in many countries higher than those of the previous generation, notes the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)'s World Drug Report 2022.

Globally, the report estimates that 11.2 million people worldwide were injecting drugs. About half of them were living with hepatitis C, 1.4 million with HIV and 1.2 million with both.