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Jun192022 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

WTO agrees deals on Covid vaccines and overfishing

COVID19

GHealth News - Agreements including waiving patents for Covid vaccines and aiming to reduce overfishing have been passed by the World Trade Organization (WTO). The group of 164 countries spent five days negotiating deals which included pledges on health and food security. The partial intellectual property waiver deal for coronavirus jabs will allow developing countries to produce and export vaccines. But it will only last five years, and excludes disease treatments and tests. Director-general of the WTO Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the agreements, reached at a conference in Geneva, would "make a difference to the lives of people around the world". "The outcomes demonstrate that the WTO is in fact capable of responding to emergencies of our time," she added. The package of the...

Jun192022 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

WHO highlights urgent need to transform mental health and mental health care

Global Health

GHealth News - The World Health Organization released its largest review of world mental health since the turn of the century. The detailed work provides a blueprint for governments, academics, health professionals, civil society and others with an ambition to support the world in transforming mental health. In 2019, nearly a billion people – including 14% of the world’s adolescents – were living with a mental disorder. Suicide accounted for more than 1 in 100 deaths and 58% of suicides occurred before age 50. Mental disorders are the leading cause of disability, causing 1 in 6 years lived with disability. People with severe mental health conditions die on average 10 to 20 years earlier than the general population, mostly due to preventable physical diseases. Childhood sexual abuse and ...

Jun162022 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

WHO to rename monkeypox virus to avoid discrimination

Global Health

GHealth News - The World Health Organization has said it will rename monkeypox to avoid discrimination and stigmatisation as the virus continues to spread among people in an unprecedented global outbreak of the disease. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director general, said the organisation was “working with partners and experts from around the world on changing the name of the monkeypox virus, its clades and the disease it causes”. The move comes after scientists called for an “urgent” change to the name which they described as “inaccurate”, “discriminatory” and “stigmatising” in a report released last week. An announcement on the new name would be made “as soon as possible”, said Tedros. Similar concerns were raised at the height of the coronavirus pandemic when new Cov...

Jun82022 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

Food shortages are next global health crisis -expert

Global Health

GHealth News - Growing food shortages may represent the same health threat to the world as the COVID-19 pandemic, a leading global health figure has warned. Rising food and energy prices, in part sparked by the war in Ukraine, could kill millions both directly and indirectly, Peter Sands, the executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. "Food shortages work in two ways. One is you have the tragedy of people actually starving to death. But second is you have the fact that often much larger numbers of people are poorly nourished, and that makes them more vulnerable to existing diseases," he said. He said efforts to improve pandemic preparedness should not make the "classic" mistake of concerning themselves on...

Jun82022 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

CDC Raises Monkeypox Travel Alert To Level 2

Communicable Diseases

There are now more than 1,000 confirmed monkeypox cases in 29 countries.CDC GHealth News - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) raised its monkeypox alert to a Level 2, or “practice enhanced precautions.” The guidance includes wearing face masks while traveling as well as avoiding close contact with sick animals and people, especially those with skin lesions. The highest level alert — Level 3 — would caution against non-essential travel. While emphasizing that the risk was not on the same level as for Covid-19, the agency is tracking cases that have been reported in several countries that don’t normally report monkeypox, including the United States. Many of these people have not recently been in central or west African countries where monkeypox usually occurs. T...

Jun82022 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

New biodegradable gel could ‘repair damage caused by heart attack’

NCDs

GHealth News - A new biodegradable gel has been developed to repair the damage caused by a heart attack. Experts at the University of Manchester, backed by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), created the substance, which can be injected directly into the beating heart. The gel works as a scaffold for injected cells to grow new tissue. In the past, when cells have been injected into the heart to reduce the risk of heart failure, only 1% have stayed in place and survived. The new gel is made of amino acids called peptides which are the building blocks of proteins. It behaves like a liquid when it is under stress as the peptides disassemble - which is an ideal state to inject it - and then the peptides work to reassemble, making it a solid. This holds the cells in place as they...

Jun32022 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

Why mental health is a priority for action on climate change

Climate Change

GHealth News - Climate change poses serious risks to mental health and well-being, concludes a new WHO policy brief, launched today at the Stockholm+50 conference. The Organization is therefore urging countries to include mental health support in their response to the climate crisis, citing examples where a few pioneering countries have done this effectively. The findings concur with a recent report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in February this year. The IPPC revealed that rapidly increasing climate change poses a rising threat to mental health and psychosocial well-being; from emotional distress to anxiety, depression, grief, and suicidal behavior. “The impacts of climate change are increasingly part of our daily lives, and there is very little ...

May312022 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

First-ever global coverage targets for diabetes

NCDs

GHealth News - For the first time ever, WHO Member States have supported the creation of global targets for diabetes, as part of recommendations to strengthen and monitor diabetes responses within national noncommunicable disease (NCD) programmes. The five new targets set the standard that, by 2030: 80% of people living with diabetes are diagnosed80% have good control of glycaemia80% of people with diagnosed diabetes have good control of blood pressure60% of people with diabetes of 40 years or older receive statins100% of people with type 1 diabetes have access to affordable insulin and blood glucose self-monitoring. The aim is to reduce the risk of diabetes, and move towards a world where all people who are diagnosed with diabetes have access to equitable,...

May312022 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

Watching less TV could cut heart disease, study finds

NCDs

By: Nicola Davis More than one in 10 cases of coronary heart disease could be prevented if people reduced their TV viewing to less than an hour a day, research suggests. Coronary heart disease occurs when fatty material builds up inside the coronary arteries causing them to narrow, reducing the heart’s blood supply. Researchers say cutting down on time spent in front of the TV could lower the risk of developing the disease. “Reducing time spent watching TV should be recognised as a key behavioural target for prevention of coronary heart disease, irrespective of genetic susceptibility and traditional risk markers,” said Dr Youngwon Kim, an assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong and an author of the research. While the team did not look at what was behind the asso...

May312022 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

Awards for outstanding contributions to public health – World Health Assembly

Global Health

GHealth News - During a moving ceremony at the Seventy-fifth World Health Assembly in Geneva, awards were presented to a group of individuals from around the world for their outstanding contributions to public health. Opening the award ceremony, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, said: ”The 2022 public health prizes and awards celebrate people and institutions for successfully addressing a huge array of health challenges around the world. It is an honour for us to come together to acknowledge these true champions of health. I thank the foundations and institutions who so generally support these awards.” Many of the prizes awarded have been established by, or set up in memory of, an eminent public health professional. The call for nomi...