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Jun242022 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

WHO considers declaring monkeypox a global health emergency

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) GHealth News - The World Health Organization convened its emergency committee Thursday to consider if the spiralling outbreak of monkeypox warrants being declared a global emergency. But some experts say the WHO's decision to act only after the disease spilled into the West could entrench the grotesque inequities that arose between rich and poor countries during the coronavirus pandemic. Declaring monkeypox to be a global emergency would mean the UN health agency considers the outbreak to be an "extraordinary event" and that the disease is at risk of spreading across even more borders, possibly requiring a global response. It would also give monkeypox the same distinction as the COVID-19 pande...

Jun242022 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

UK to offer vaccines to some gay, bisexual men for monkeypox

Communicable Diseases

GHealth News - British health officials will start offering vaccines to some men who have sex with men and are at the highest risk of catching monkeypox, in an effort to curb the biggest outbreak of the disease beyond Africa. Doctors can consider vaccination for some men at the highest risk of exposure, Britain’s Health Security agency said in a statement Tuesday. The agency identified those at highest risk as men who have sex with men and who have multiple partners, participate in group sex or attend venues where sex occurs on the premises. “By expanding the vaccine offer to those at higher risk, we hope to break chains of transmission and help contain the outbreak,” said the Health Security Agency’s head of immunization, Dr. Mary Ramsay. Last month, a leading adviser to the Worl...

Jun192022 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

Climate change: Bonn talks end in acrimony over compensation

Climate Change

People being rescued from floods in China GHealth News - Two weeks of climate talks in Germany have ended in acrimony between rich and poor countries over cash for climate damage. Developing countries say they are reeling from climate change caused by richer countries' emissions over hundreds of years. They hoped to get compensation onto the official agenda for discussions by world leaders in November. But here in Bonn they couldn't get the US and the European Union to agree. "The climate emergency is fast becoming a catastrophe," said Conrod Hunte, lead negotiator for the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS). "Yet within these walls the process feels out of step with reality, the pace feels too slow," he told delegates at the end of the meeting. Developing nations ...

Jun192022 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

FDA Approves First Systemic Treatment for Alopecia Areata

NCDs

GHealth News - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Olumiant (baricitinib) oral tablets to treat adult patients with severe alopecia areata, a disorder that often appears as patchy baldness and affects more than 300,000 people in the U.S. each year. Today’s action marks the first FDA approval of a systemic treatment (i.e. treats the entire body rather than a specific location) for alopecia areata. “Access to safe and effective treatment options is crucial for the significant number of Americans affected by severe alopecia,” said Kendall Marcus, M.D., director of the Division of Dermatology and Dentistry in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “Today’s approval will help fulfill a significant unmet need for patients with severe alopecia areata.” Alopecia areata...

Jun192022 by GHealth NewsNo Comments

Overweight people lost 35 to 52 pounds on newly approved diabetes drug, study says

NCDs

GHealth News - A weekly dose of a medication recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration to treat type 2 diabetes may help adults without diabetes lose weight as well, a new study found. Tirzepatide, which is sold under the brand name Mounjaro, was studied in people without diabetes in three dosages: 5, 10 and 15 milligrams. Participants with obesity or who were overweight and took the 5-milligram dose lost an average of 35 pounds (16 killograms), those on the 10-milligram dose lost an average of 49 pounds (22 kilograms), and participants on the 15-milligram dose lost an average of 52 pounds (23.6 kilograms). "Almost 40% of individuals lost a quarter of their body weight," said coauthor Dr. Ania Jastreboff, codirector of the Yale Center for Weight Management in a briefin...

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...