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...

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...

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...

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) GHealth News - The WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has announced six awards to recognize outstanding contributions to advancing global health, demonstrated leadership and commitment to regional health issues. Dr Tedros himself decides on the awardees for the World Health Organization Director-General’s Global Health Leaders Awards. The ceremony for the awards, which were established in 2019, was part of the live-streamed high-level opening session of the 75th World Health Assembly.  “At a time when the world is facing an unprecedented convergence of inequity, conflict, food insecurity, the climate crisis and a pandemic, this award recognizes those who have made an outst...

Brazilian 99-year-old former WWII combatant Ermando Armelino Piveta gestures as he leaves the Armed Forces Hospital after being treated for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and discharged, in Brasilia, Brazil. REUTERS GHealth News - Despite the the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization’s 2020-2021 Results Report tracks WHO’s significant achievements across the global health spectrum. Released ahead of the World Health Assembly next week, the report details such accomplishments as the delivery of more than 1.4 billion vaccine doses via the COVAX facility, the recommendation for broad use of the world’s first malaria vaccine and WHO’s response to some 87 health emergencies, including COVID-19. During 2020-2021, WHO led the largest-ever global response to a health crisis, w...

GHealth News - The COVID-19 pandemic and other recent large disease outbreaks have highlighted the extent to which health care settings can contribute to the spread of infections, harming patients, health workers and visitors, if insufficient attention is paid to infection prevention and control (IPC). But a new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that where good hand hygiene and other cost-effective practices are followed, 70% of those infections can be prevented.  Today, out of every 100 patients in acute-care hospitals, seven patients in high-income countries and 15 patients in low- and middle-income countries will acquire at least one health care-associated infection (HAI) during their hospital stay. On average, 1 in every 10 affected patients will die from their H...

GHealth News - Bill Gates has outlined proposals for a new global pandemic surveillance unit, claiming the World Health Organization currently has "less than 10 full-time people" on the lookout for deadly new viruses.  The Microsoft cofounder was pushing countries to take the threat of a global pandemic more seriously long before COVID-19 arrived, warning viewers of a 2015 TED Talk the world was "not ready" for a deadly outbreak.  Speaking to the FT ahead of the release of his upcoming book, "How to Prevent the Next Pandemic", Gates said his proposed "Global Epidemic Response and Mobilization" initiative should fall under the WHO's management.  The billionaire philanthropist suggested the task force be put together to monitor global hea...

GHealth News - Health officials in the UK have released new details in their ongoing investigation of an unusual series of hepatitis cases in children. The new report helps explain why they have zeroed in on a possible link to the adenovirus family, the UK Health Security Agency announced Monday. Since the beginning of the year, at least 111 children have been identified in the UK with acute liver inflammation that does not appear to be caused by the group of hepatitis viruses that would've been a more likely culprit. Many more cases have been announced in the US and other countries around the world. Roughly three-quarters of the 53 children who were tested for adenovirus in the UK came back positive. The virus that causes Covid-19, on the other hand, was found in only a sixth of childr...

GHealth News - Public health officials in Europe and the United States are investigating dozens of puzzling cases of severe hepatitis in young children. Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver. The cause is often a virus, but the viruses that commonly cause the illness — hepatitis A, B, C, D and E — have been ruled out in the cases in question, leaving doctors searching for the culprit. In several cases, the illness was so severe that the children needed a liver transplant. No deaths have been reported. The World Health Organization on Friday said it was investigating 74 cases of severe acute hepatitis in children under age 13 in the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. Three cases were also reported in Spain, the WHO said. It's not clear when symptoms for most of the ...