GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The World Health Organization is expected to declare polio a global health emergency as the World Health Assembly convenes in Geneva this week.
Bruce Aylward, director of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative at the WHO, said Thursday 24 May that “Over the last 24 months on three continents – in Europe, in Africa and in Asia – we have seen horrific explosive outbreaks of the disease that affected adults, and in some cases 50% of them died”.
The Global Initiative has launched an emergency plan to improve vaccination coverage in three countries, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria, where transmission of the disease had never been halted. The plan is summed up as a “relentless pursuit of the unvaccinated child”.
WHO spokeswoman Sona Bari says there is a renewed sense of urgency to eradicate polio, “We really are at a tipping point between success and failure”.
Polio, or poliomyelitis, is an acute viral disease which can lead to partial or full paralysis, and is transmissible from person to person. The WHO had originally set 2000 as a target year for the full eradication of polio. Logistical problems in Nigeria, ongoing fighting in Afghanistan and Pakistan which made it difficult to reach children who needed to be vaccinated, as well as anti-Western rumors spread my hard-line Pakistani Muslims saying that the vaccines lead to infertility, all obstructed vaccinations drives.
Margaret Chan, who was reappointed Wednesday 23 May as WHO’s Director General, said the organization was operating in “emergency mode” against polio.
Dr Margaret Chan up for election to head WHO for second term
Dr Margaret Chan (archives)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The World Health Organization’s 192 members are meeting for five days in Geneva starting Monday 21 May. The assembly will elect a director general and current head Dr Margaret Chan, with solid backing from the board, looks set for re-election.
Chan, in her opening remarks Monday, emphasized the progress made by countries whose governments have shown “the importance of national ownership and leadership.” She cited India’s polio eradication programme, Ghana’s commitment to guinea worm eradication, noting that “during the first quarter of 2012, cases of this disease dropped 67% compared with last year, and now number just over 100.” And Namibia, which “is leading a group of 8 neighbouring African countries in a joint effort to eliminate malaria.”
Funds are tighter, and it’s time to get back to the basics, “shift to thrift” and be innovative, says Chan
Chan characterized the last decade as a golden one for world health, on many levels, but arguing against the doomsayers who believe the opposite is now true.
“At the start of the decade, the Millennium Development Goals showed how much the perception of health had changed, from a drain on resources to a driver of socioeconomic progress. In that golden decade, governments, in both donor and recipient countries, made the health agenda a top priority. Money for health development more than tripled. Substantial results followed, with a particularly strong impact on deaths from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, and childhood illness.”
More than 60 countries now pushing for universal health coverage
The director general saved her strongest words, in an upbeat message about where health is headed, for a shift towards universal health coverage.
“Following publication of the 2010 World Health Report on health system financing, more than 60 countries have approached WHO seeking technical support for their plans to move towards universal coverage.
“What we are seeing goes against the historical pattern, where social services shrink when money gets tight. I think this drive to expand coverage is a powerful signal. Despite deepening financial austerity, the will to do the right thing, the fair thing, for people’s health prevails.”
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Slowing the expected increase in growing obesity rates in the United States can drastically reduce health care costs, according to an analysis presented at a Washington health conference, National Public Radio reports.
According to the evaluation presented at the Weight of the Nation conference in Washington and published in the American Journal for Preventative Medicine, if obesity in the US were to stay at 2010 levels, the combined savings in medical costs over the next two decades would amount to $549.5 billion.
The study also presented a leveling in the rate of growth of the US overweight population. Currently 33 percent of Americans are obese and by 2030, 42 percent are expected to be so, below the expected level of 51 percent. Obesity is defined in terms of a body mass index that compares weight to height. Obesity represents a ratio above 25 kg/m2, and severe obesity a ratio greater than 30kg/m2.
The World Health Organization says that worldwide, obesity is on the rise, having more than doubled since 1980, with 1.5 billion people being overweight or obese. It attributes the problem of overweight and obesity to 44 percent of the diabetes burden and to 23 percent of the heart disease burden.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The World Health Organization in Delhi announced 29 February that India is no longer on the list of “endemic” polio nations, with that list now reduced to an all-time low of three countries. Polio-endemic nations are those that have never stopped indigenous wild poliovirus transmission.
The three remaining polio-endemic countries are Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan.
India’s last new case was registered in January 2011 and at the start of 2012 the WHO noted that while India was once recognized as the world’s epicentre of polio vaccinations and careful surveillance had turned the situation around. The Geneva office said in January that “if all pending laboratory investigations return negative, in the coming weeks India will officially be deemed to have stopped indigenous transmission of wild poliovirus.”
The Delhi office’s announcement was covered at length by the BBC‘s medical correspondent, who points out that eradicating the disease by 2012 is nevertheless not on track.
The WHO in Geneva, for its part, says that Read more…
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Malaria cases worldwide fell by 25 percent in the past decade and by 33 percent worldwide thanks to better prevention but threatened shortfalls in funding from governments could slow the fight against the disease, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports. Its World malaria report 2011, published 13 December, shows malaria rates falling in all parts of the world, but the disease is far from eradicated.
“In 2010, there were an estimated 216 million cases of malaria in 106 endemic countries and territories in the world. An estimated 81 percent percent of these cases and 91 percent of deaths occurred in the WHO African Region. Globally, 86 percent of the victims were children under 5 years of age.”
The disease is entirely preventable and treatable, notes the WHO, which makes the number of deaths from it, 655,000 in 2010, “disconcertingly high” even though it was 38,000 fewer than the year before.
Landmarks get red lights as Aids Day
Global prevention, treatment and funding at a turning point
Women in Eritrea learn about Aids (photo ©2011 The Global Fund / Didier Ruef )
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Red lights are shining today on several world landmarks, including the Empire State Building and Stock Exchange in New York and the Sydney Opera House in Australia, to mark World Aids Day. The day has been noted officially since 1988, making it 23 years since we woke up to the reality that action on a massive scale was needed to stop the killer disease.
Funding was organized over the years, treatment and prevention research were stepped up, and patients began to find help. The World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva says that HIV infections fell by 15 percent in the past decade and Aids-related deaths fell by 22 percent.
The improvements came about largely because of better access to treatment and drugs, but just as hope has been growing, the global economic crises of the past three years are threatening to bite into that progress, the WHO and the Geneva-based Global Fund note.
And a number of groups remain at risk: teenage girls, drug users, men who have sex with men and babies born to women with HIV.
On the bright side, there is clear progress, says the WHO:
Too much of a good thing means we need to cut back, says the Federal Office of Public Health
BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss are known for their conservative approach to money, but one area where they are too liberal, it appears, is in adding sodium, or table salt, to their food. A study released Monday by the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) shows that people consume nearly double the amount of salt they should, but it also points to ways to reduce this, starting with the food industry.
Too much salt causes health problems, with the risk of cardiovascular disease high on the list. The Chuv (university hospitals) in Lausanne was mandated to carry out the research, with questionnaires for 1,500 people followed up by tests for hypertension.
Men were found to consume more salt than women, 10.6 grams compared to 7.8g. The World Health Organization’s recommends an intake of 5g maximum.
More men had a problem with high blood pressure, 32.3 percent, than women, 19.1 percent, but the average of more than 25 percent shows a population too much at risk for cardiovascular disease, says the FOPH.
School lunches, work canteens will use less salt, more herbs and spices
Expect less, get more, could well be the motto of the future for the Swiss population, with the food industry and researchers now working with the health office to cut back on the use of salt without any loss of flavour or safety in order to help consumers boost their health.
The study is part of the FOPH’s “Salt Strategy 2008–2012“, which aims to reduce the nation’s salt consumption. Salt Strategy is one part of the Swiss Nutrition and Physical Activity Programme 2008–2012.
Eleven categories of products have been targeted for reduced salt, with the federal government laying out recommendations for industry cutting back. Read more…
The WHO board call for reform points to "WHO's unique mandate as the directing and coordinating authority for work in international health"; here, part of a 2009 WHO report on the health problems linked to the high number of road accidents in Africa
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The World Health Organization, based in Geneva, late Friday 4 November, approved a number of resolutions to reform the health body at the most basic levels.
The crucial question of how to improve funding was set aside for two months until the next general meeting of the executive board. The WHO, in a statement issued Friday night, states that the board will then review “a proposed mechanism to increase predictability and flexibility of financing for the organization”.
Two key changes agreed to in the special board meeting on WHO reform that just drew to a close in Geneva will be to establish a contingency fund for emergency work and to clarify roles and responsibilities “between the three levels of the WHO – country offices, regional offices and headquarters – to create a tightly networked, leaner and streamlined organization”.
The WHO has repeatedly faced under-funding for a number of reasons including the high percentage, in its budget, of “voluntary donations” and in the past, criticism from the US government which withheld funding. That relationship has been on a better footing for several years, and in September 2011 the US and the WHO agreed to strengthen the relationship.
The board also agreed to set up a mechanism for independent evaluation and to:
- develop criteria for priority-setting of its work in global public health
- engage “an increasing number of public health actors, including foundations, civil society organizations, partnerships and the private sector. The Board felt strongly that in any opportunity for engagement, WHO’s independence and integrity must be protected from undue influence by those with vested interests.”
WHO headquarters in Geneva
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The World Health Organization in Geneva confirmed Friday 28 October that staff cuts of some 300 posts, announced in May, will go ahead: 167 of these are fixed posts and the rest mainly short-term contracts at this point.
But more job cuts and rumours spread by Swiss-based media of staff being shifted to Africa are just that: false alarms, says Christy Feig, spokeswoman. Feig says the rumours appear to be based on misunderstandings of numbers announced earlier in the year coupled with confusion over the role of a special “reform” session of the executive council of the WHO 1-5 November in Geneva. The two are separate.
The confusion over numbers probably arose from one journalist inadvertently counting some of the same numbers twice, then other numbers being wrongly added by yet other journalists, the WHO has determined after trying to get to the bottom of unfounded rumours that up to 1,000 staff were being moved to Africa.
The job cuts are part of the cyclical financial problems of WHO, whose funding has long been a problem for the group. Only about 25 percent of the UN agency’s budget coming from must-pay “assessed contributions” from member states and the other 75 percent from voluntary contributions. The WHO knows where about 40 percent of its funding will come from at the start of each two-year budget period, and its programme planning is necessarily done separately from budgeting, given the large gap.
The ongoing global economic crisis, with a resulting drop in voluntary contributions, and the Swiss franc’s high exchange rate, lie behind the UN organization’s staff cuts, from 2,400 to 2,100 in Geneva by the end of this year. There is no talk of moving staff to other countries for either of those reasons, Feig says. There was some discussion earlier this year among one unit that works in Africa about possibly moving some staff to Africa to be closer to field operations, but the decision was made not to move any of the 65 members of its staff.
Staff moves, but for operational rather than financial reasons, are a small part of the large agenda the special meeting next week will cover. The meeting is devoted to reviewing the need for reform of the WHO in a number of areas. Feig points out that the health body was founded in 1948 and the executive committee agreed in May that the time is ripe to review “how the landscape has changed,” she says. “Do we need to refocus programme priorities” in light of these changes and how does the WHO recognize the many other groups working in the field of global health. “How do we give these other groups in put, how do we make sure more voices are heard?”
The reform discussions will also look at managerial and human resources issues, she says, with some calls for more transparency and accountability. The WHO would like to see the 40 percent known funding “driven up to 70 percent”, in part because the current funding situation probably drives the health body to rely too much on short-term contracts. Next week’s meeting will consider how the WHO can best provide more core long-term expertise. One part of this could include moving some staff into the field, but for now the option is hypothetical, part of a larger debate – and in any event not an option before the 2013-14 budget.
The WHO is running a budget deficit of some $330 million out of an annual budget of $2.2 billion.
Underfunding is a growing concern, though, says WHO
TB patient in Ethiopia being carried by her sons (photo, WHO)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Sustained efforts by a number of large countries are responsible for much of the dramatic improvement in the global picture for tuberculosis, the World Health Organization said late Tuesday 11 October.
China has halved the prevalence of the disease and seen the number of people dying from TB fall by 80 percent in the past decade. Brazil, Kenya and Tanzania have pumped resources into fighting the disease with very good results.
Worldwide, says the UN health organization in its WHO 2011 global tuberculosis control report, published 11 October, that:
- the number of people who fell ill with TB dropped to 8.8 million in 2010, after peaking at 9 million in 2005
- TB deaths fell to 1.4 million in 2010, after reaching 1.8 million in 2003
- the TB death rate dropped 40 percent between 1990 and 2010, and all regions, except Africa, are on track to achieve a 50 percent decline in mortality by 2015
- in 2009, 87 percent of patients treated were cured, with 46 million people successfully treated and seven million lives saved since 1995. However, a third of estimated TB cases worldwide are not notified and therefore it is unknown whether they have been diagnosed and properly treated.
Funding gap hitting multidrug resistant cases
The WHO says in a statement that rapid progress is being made in detecting multidrug resistant (MDR) TB, thanks to new tests that are being widely adopted. But detection is outpacing treatment for the MDR cases:
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Money invested in mental health comes to a global average of only $3 per capita, according to the World Health Organization, and in some developing countries it is as low as $.25, with most funds spent on long-term hospitalization. Only two percent of all health resources are invested in mental health services and prevention is badly underfunded, the Geneva-based group says in its Mental Health Atlas 2011, published Friday 7 October.
The report “finds that the bulk of those resources are often spent on services that serve relatively few people”, with 70 percent of scarce funding going to mental institutions.
A key problem is that “in lower income countries, however, shortages of resources and skills often result in patients only being treated with medicines. The lack of psychosocial care reduces the effectiveness of the treatment.”
Half of the world’s population lives in areas where there is only one psychiatrist per 200,000 people.
MILAN, ITALY – Sunday 9 October was a car-free day in Milan, designed to get the pollution level, one of Europe’s highest, down to legally acceptable levels. Seventy firefighters and extra police officers ensured that from 08:00 to 18:00 virtually no cars were driven in the city. The city’s safety commissioner said they were also checking cars with stickers for the handicapped, which could be driven, to catch cheaters, according to Corriere della sera newspaper.
The fine is euros 155 for driving on a car-free Sunday.
The ban followed 10 days of restrictions on certain categories of vehicles that were labelled polluters. The system kicks in when the pollution level rises above 50 micrograms of particulates per m3 of air over 12 days
Source: WHO, September 2011
Detractors, including some environmental groups, say the day off does little to bring down levels. Corriere della sera cites one critic who notes that the level has dropped to within legal limits after only on six of the 15 car-free Sundays in recent years, and that the city should invest more in anti-pollution measures for its public transport system.
Milan’s citizens were encouraged to take advantage of free entry Sunday to the city’s swimming pools and discounted entries for several museums, using the additional buses and subway trains that were put on for the day.
The northern Italian city has one of the highest car ownership ratios in the world and ranks as one of Europe’s most polluted cities for both the extent to which pollution rises above the European Union PM10 (particulates) limit of 50 micrograms per m3, and the duration. An Ecopass system to reduce car traffic went into effect in 2008, at which point 98,000 cars reportedly entered the city every day. The number of cars affected by Sunday’s ban three years later was 120,000, according to city officials.
The most recent comparative figures, from the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva in late September, show Milan, Torino and Naples sharing the top spot, with 2008 annual PM10 figures of 44 or 45 on average. The WHO published its new clean air guidelines and database covering more than 1,000 cities in 91 countries, noting:
“PM10 particles, which are particles of 10 micrometers or less, which can penetrate into the lungs and may enter the bloodstream, can cause heart disease, lung cancer, asthma, and acute lower respiratory infections. The WHO air quality guidelines for PM10 is 20 micrograms per cubic metre (µg/m3) as an annual average, but the data released today shows that average PM10 in some cities has reached up to 300 µg/m3.”
Bern, Geneva and Zurich showed annual averages of 21 to 24, while Rome was 35 and Paris 38, according to WHO figures.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The Hug university hospitals in Geneva were handed a surprise strike Thursday 6 October by the workers who transport patients and material, and the union for which they work and hospital officials immediately met. The hospital says in a statement issued during the morning that its first preoccupation is the patients, and that they must not be taken hostage by the situation.
The workers’ demands prompted the hospital’s management to suggest three solutions:
- given that the hospital itself does not have responsibility for salaries, which are set by cantonal authorities, it recommends that as a temporary measure both types of transport workers be placed on the same salary scale
- that the hospital can recommend an increase in the number of staff, but for the 2012 budget
- that a reorganization of the service should be put under review.
Infectious diseases prevention projects honoured as international references
The Hug had earlier announced, Thursday evening, brighter news: its penitentiary hospital staff were awarded Wednesday, in Italy, the World Health Organization’s Health in Prisons Project prize. The award was given to the HUG jointly with the Champs-Dollon prison in Geneva, for two projects. Both are considered projects of reference in Switzerland and abroad, notes the HUG: one for measles prevention and the other a syringue-distribution project designed to reduce infectious diseases.
Cucumbers: when will we learn to love them again?
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – “It’s the bean sprouts”, the source of the E. coli outbreak in Germany, Reinhard Burger, Germany’s head of infectious diseases programme, said Friday morning 10 June. The actual sprouts that are behind what the WHO labels the “the unusual enteroaggregative verocytotoxin-producing Escherichia coli (EAggEC VTEC) O104:H4 bacterium” have not yet been pinpointed.
Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment and Food Safety and the Robert Koch-Institute will publish a joint press release Friday.
The number of new infections has been falling in recent days, but E.coli itself has killed 6 people in Germany and the HUS complication has killed 26, with an additional death in Sweden, according to WHO worldwide figures for the outbreak. In total, 2,909 people have been infected.
The European Union said Tuesday it would set aside €210 million for farmers touched by the outbreak, but a European farmers organization, Colos, says the losses are reaching €400m a week. Spanish farmers, the largest fruit and vegetable producers in Europe, calculate they have lost €200m in business since the start of the outbreak at the end of April, and German farmers say they have lost €60m, according to news agency AFP/TSR (Fr).
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – World Health Organization (WHO) figures Sunday 5 June showed that 21 people have died from E. coli or HUS, which is provoked by E. coli, while in Germany public health authorities in Lower Saxony say they have a “really hot lead” to the cause: bean and other sprouts from a farm 70km south of Hamburg are looking like the culprit.
Gert Lindemann, agriculture minister for the state of Lower Saxony said at a press conference that the deadly strain of the bacteria has now been traced to a farm in the Uelzen area; German media say it is near Bienenbuettel. The farm has been closed while the investigation continues. Reuters notes that “Lindemann said that not only beansprouts, but also alfalfa sprouts, mung bean sprouts, radish sprouts and arugula sprouts from the farm might be connected to the outbreak. Raw sprouts are popular among Germans and often mixed in salads or added to sandwiches.”
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The WHO in Geneva, which keeps the official world tally on infectious diseases, with all affected countries reporting to it, published its latest figures at 18:00 Sunday:
Germany, HUS: 627, with 15 deaths
Germany, E. coli: 1,536, with 6 death (note: does not include the HUS cases)
| Country | HUS | EHEC |
|---|---|---|
| Austria | 0 | 2 |
| Czech Republic | 0 | 1 |
| Denmark | 7 | 11 |
| France | 0 | 10 |
| Netherlands | 4 | 4 |
| Norway | 0 | 1 |
| Poland | 1 | 0 |
| Spain | 1 | 0 |
| Sweden | 15 | 31 |
| Switzerland | 0 | 3 |
| United Kingdom | 3 | 8 |
In addition, the WHO reports that the United States has published information about two suspected E. coli cases linked to the German outbreak. In the figures above, “all except 1 of the above HUS and EHEC patients had travelled to or from Germany during the incubation period for infection, typically 3–4 days after exposure (range 2–10 days),” according to the WHO.
Countries that are affected are also reporting their cases to Germany, and European countries are reporting to the secure Early Warning and Response System (EWRS) as well.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva late Thursday 2 June confirmed earlier reports that the E. coli strain that has been identified as the killer of 16 people in Europe is a new strain. It issued this statement:
“The strain of enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) 0104:H4 isolated from cases in the EHEC infection outbreak in Germany is a rare one, seen in humans before, but never in an EHEC outbreak. This has been confirmed by the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Escherichia and Klebsiella, the Statens Serum Institut in Denmark.
“The molecular/genetic features of this pathogen are important in helping authorities to identify cases in other countries that could be associated with the outbreak in Germany and to identify the source of the outbreak. While epidemiological and laboratory investigations continue, the source of the outbreak still remains unknown.
The WHO says that “cases of haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS) [Ed. note: a complication that involves the kidneys] and enterohemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) continue to rise in Germany. Ten countries have now reported cases to WHO/Europe.” Nine people in Germany have died from HUS and six from E. coli. One person in Sweden has died.
Two people in Switzerland have been infected and both are being treated for E. coli. They had recently been in northern Germany.
The WHO said Thursday that more than 1,500 people are hospitalized in Germany, about one-third of them being treated for HUS and the other for E. coli. The number of those treated for the serious complications that HUS brings, 97 more on 1 June than the day before, is rapidly increasing, the WHO points out.
People should continue to use careful hygiene, the WHO recommends: “The normal hygiene measures should be observed, hand washing after toilet use and before touching food. Anyone who has developed bloody diarrhea and abdominal pain, and who has had contact recently with northern Germany, should seek medical advice urgently.”
Links to other sites: CTV, Canada, Der Spiegel, Germany, European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, WHO “five keys to safer food” page
©2011 Globe Cartoon / Patrick Chappatte
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – To say Monday 31 May was a day that went up in smoke for the The World Health Organization (WHO) would be an exaggeration, but media attention for its annual “world no tobacco day” appeared to take second place to cells phones and cancer. Global media instead reacted with an instant buzz of headlines Tuesday to a WHO press release entitled “Radiofrequency electromagnetic fields are possibly carcinogenic”.
A working group that met at the International Agency for Cancer Research (IACR) in Lyon from 24-31 May concluded that cell phones should be given a new cancer-risk classification, saying this is “based on an increased risk for glioma, a malignant type of brain cancer associated with wireless phone use”.
The group noting that with five billion phones in use globally, this is a potential public health risk that warrants more study.
Switzerland has nine million cell phones.
The 31 scientists from 14 countries were meeting to assess potential carcinogenic hazards from this exposure. Dr Jonathan Samet from the University of Southern California in the US, who chaired the group, said in a statement that “the evidence, while still accumulating, is strong enough to support a conclusion and the 2B classification. The conclusion means that there could be some risk, and therefore we need to keep a close watch for a link between cell phones and cancer risk.”
The IACR’s classifications:
| Group 1 | Carcinogenic to humans | 107 agents | |
| Group 2A | Probably carcinogenic to humans | 59 | |
| Group 2B | Possibly carcinogenic to humans | 266 | |
| Group 3 | Not classifiable as to its carcinogenicity to humans | 508 | |
| Group 4 | Probably not carcinogenic to humans | 1 |
The WHO cites growing concern in recent years over possible cell phone and cancer links. It pointed out that the jury is not in yet on links, and that more research needs to be done.
“The evidence was reviewed critically, and overall evaluated as being limited among users of wireless telephones for glioma and acoustic neuroma, and inadequate to draw conclusions for other types of cancers. The evidence from occupational and environmental exposures … was similarly judged inadequate. The working group did not quantitate the risk; however, one study of past cell phone use (up to the year 2004), showed a 40 percent increased risk for gliomas in the highest category of heavy users (reported average: 30 minutes per day over a 10‐year period).”
Four years of Swiss research: no clear health link but cell phones affect sleep patterns
WHO headquarters in Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva prides itself on its international role, but if you sense that the city’s native sons and daughters are outnumbered by foreign guests at the moment, you’re right. Runners, weather and climate specialists, world health workers have all converged on the city for three weeks of events.
Geneva Marathon has massive increase in runners
The Geneva Marathon races 14-15 May brought out 5,700 runners, a massive increase of 2,100 over the 2010 race, and they were cheered on by 47,000 spectators. This year’s Marathon for Unicef also saw a sharp increase in international participation, with runners from 191 countries. The winner of the men’s marathon was Ethiopian Hailu Begashaw, and Pascale Prevel from France won the women’s marathon. Geneva-based New Zealander Guy Simpson came in second in the men’s and Tsige Germa from Ehtiopia was third.
Weather and disaster preparedness the focus at Meteorological Congress
The World Meteorological Congress opens Monday 16 May and runs until 3 June. A key item on the agenda is a new recommendation to create a Global Framework for Climate Services. The recommendation was made last week, as part of a report and plan of action to help countries adapt to climate change, approved in Geneva during the Global Platform on Disaster Risk Reduction meeting.
World Health Assembly opens with several contentious issues on the agenda
Regular exercise from an early age is one key to reducing obesity
Geneva / Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A group of universities, including EPFL in Lausanne, is behind one of the latest encouraging signs of new treatments for diabetes, obesity and possibly several cancers. Their research into the cell metabolism action of a group of cancer drugs called Paribs indicates that the drugs do more than repair the DNA in cancer cells, the work for which they are now used.
At the same time, the UK has just published the results of an audit on the effectiveness of bariatric (weight loss) surgery at reducing Type 2 diabetes, which shows that 85 percent of patients who had the surgery showed significant improvement in their diabetes a year later.
The rapid increase in the rate of diabetes in the developed world has encouraged more research into solutions, often linked to obesity and excess weight. Geneva-based World Health Organization (WHO) says more than 220 million people worldwide have diabetes type 2, but in 2005 it forecast that the number could double by 2030.
EPFL’s press release on the university researchers’ findings, published 6 April in journal Cell Metabolism, explains how Paribs might help:
“Cancer cells have the property of using glucose as an energy source instead of burning fatty acids. The scientists have noticed that Paribs enable their metabolism to be modified so that they begin to use them. This has the effect of weakening them and therefore stopping the progression of the cancer. The cells of patients suffering from type 2 diabetes, obesity or oxidation disorders share this characteristic of running on glucose.”
New UK study shows that diabetes risk is greatly reduced by weight-loss surgery
The Ministry of Health in Uganda at the end of March banned the practice of reflexology because of concerns over malpractice, until further notice, according to allAfrica.com. The Minister of Health, Dr Stephen Mallinga, announced all reflexology centres must close and media advertising would be banned.
Reflexology is the “massage of the feet or hands based on the belief that pressure applied to specific points on these extremities benefits other parts of the body,” according to MedlinePlus.
The World Health Organization in 2005 in a report on Uganda’s healthcare system noted that “of late, a number of non-Ugandan Traditional Medicine Systems have been introduced into the country. These include the Chinese and Ayurvedic practiced from China and India respectively. Other systems like Reiki, Chiropractice, Homeopathy and Reflexology are among later practices
introduced into the country.”
Reflexology practitioners in Uganda are reported by allAfrica to be taking the government to court for their right to practice: “Uganda has only one trained reflexologist and she is not practising,” says Dr Fredrick Mutyaba of the Uganda Medical and Dental Practitioners Council. “All the other people calling themselves reflexologists are quacks and we will watch the space to see how events unfold in court.”
Mutyaba was one of the researchers who discovered malpractice among Uganda’s reflexology practitioners.
South Africa is the rare country in Africa that supervises its reflexology practitioners, under the South African Reflexology Society, created in 1985.
Links to other sites: allAfrica.com, The South African Reflexology Society
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - China’s State Food And Drug Administration now meets stringent World Health Organization (WHO) “indicators for a functional vaccine regulatory system”, the WHO in Geneva says. The implications are potentially enormous:
“Vaccine manufacturers in China are now eligible to apply for WHO prequalification of specific products. It is expected that vaccines from China could be prequalified 1-2 years from now. The eventual ability of United Nations procuring agencies to source vaccines from Chinese manufacturers is expected to have a significant, beneficial impact on global supply of vaccines of assured quality.”
The Chinese SFDA has spent 19 months implementing a roadmap, developed by national experts, with continuous advice from the WHO, to strengthen capacity for regulation of vaccines, reports the Geneva-based UN group.
The review shows that China is “compliant in all areas required to provide regulatory oversight of vaccines: overall system framework; marketing authorization and licensing; post-marketing surveillance, including for adverse events following immunization; lot release; laboratory access; regulatory inspections of manufacturing sites and distribution channels; and authorization and monitoring of clinical trials.”
Tuberculosis in Nigeria is reaching the crisis stage, with an epidemic of drug-resistant cases threatening, say medical sources in Nigeria, according to allAfrica. Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB) cases are rapidly on the rise and could cause the “”imminent and total collapse of the efficacy of the available first-line drugs for TB treatment”. First-line drugs are less costly and treatment of TB that responds generally takes six months while MDR-TB takes 18-24 months to treat, with six of those months in hospital, say Nigerian doctors, and the drugs needed to treat the disease are far more costly.
Nigeria has one of the world’s highest rates of TB, estimated at 450,000 new cases a year, and a high percentage go undetected: only 94,000 cases were detected in 2010. MDR-TB develops most often as the result of untreated or poorly managed cases of TB.
Links to other sites: The Global Fund, USAid, WHO
Republished with permission from IP Watch
By Catherine Saez
World Health Organization (WHO) members 19 January raised strong concerns that a working group they mandated last May to address problems with WHO policy on counterfeit and substandard medicines has yet to be formed – with four months remaining before it must report back to members.
One delegation called for a halt to WHO activities on anti-counterfeiting until the outcome of the working group is accepted by member states.
WHO Director General Margaret Chan told members of the WHO Executive Board today that a first meeting of a dedicated working group would be held in late February. The Board is meeting from 17-25 January.
Countries said falsified medicines were a threat for global public health but according to some delegates, the solution cannot be dominated by intellectual property rights enforcement concerns.
The UN health agency’s HIV/Aids strategy also was discussed Tuesday with a request from countries to emphasize prevention.
The increase in rates of overweight and obese people in middle-income countries, such as Mexico, Brazil and China, is worrying health experts who say that taking measures now would be more cost-effective than when rates have reached rich-country proportions. A study by the OECD published in The Lancet 11 November comes to the conclusion that “a strategy [including] mass media campaigns promoting healthier lifestyles, taxes and subsidies to improve diets, tighter government regulation of food labeling and restrictions on food advertising” would add five million years of added life expectancy over 20 years in India and China.
India and China could spend the equivalent of $2 annually per person on such a strategy, while Mexico, Russia and South Africa would need to spend $4 per person per year, say Michele Cecchini and his team. “The strategy would pay for itself – through reduced health care costs – in half the countries surveyed, and would become cost-effective in the others within 15 years”, says the OECD.
The authors studied rates of overweight and obese adults in Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Russia and South Africa. Seventy percent of Mexicans fall into this category; in India, 15 percent of adults are overweight or obese, and the proportion is rising rapidly, the report says.
The World Health Organization (WHO) projects that by 2015, world wide, 2.3 billion people will be overweight and 700mn will be obese.
Background: GenevaLunch
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Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - India’s mortality rate due to malaria may be 13 times higher than reported, according to a study published in The Lancet 21 October, casting doubts on the validity of malaria deaths figures world-wide. The study estimates that 205,000 people may in fact be dying of malaria every year in India, due to incorrect diagnoses, especially in poor rural areas and at a distance from health centres.
The World Health Organization (WHO) statistics count 15,000 people who die of malaria in India each year. The Geneva-based WHO disputes the numbers, according to the BBC, saying they are far too high and that some criteria for inclusion, such as high fever, are not necessarily accurate.
But 1,000 women die a day: numbers must fall further, say UN agencies
Maternal health care, Sierre Leone (photo: UN / H Bigur)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Maternal deaths are falling worldwide, down by 34 percent since 1990, shows a new multi- agency report published 15 September. Some 358,000 women died during or from complications related to childbirth in 2008, down from 546,000 18 years earlier.
The fall is commendable, notes the World Health Organization (WHO), which is one of the author agencies, but the rate of decline is less than half of that needed to meet the Millennium Development Goal of a 75 percent reduction in maternal deaths between 1990 and 2015.
The report was published jointly by WHO, the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef), the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the World Bank.
Pregnant women still die from four major causes, according to the report: severe bleeding after childbirth, infections, hypertensive disorders, and unsafe abortions. About 1,000 women died due to these complications every day in 2008. Of these, 570 lived in sub-Saharan Africa, 300 in South Asia and five in high-income countries.
(video) Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – International organizations based in Geneva continue to send out urgent messages about the desperate state of humanitarian affairs in Pakistan, where more than 20 million people have been affected by flooding, and the rains continue to worsen the situation. Swiss Solidarity (La Chaîne du Bonheur in French), for its part, is holding a major fundraising appeal today, 18 August, to raise money for several aid groups who are working in Pakistan. Donations can be made by phone, 0800 87 07 07, or online.
Also making urgent appeals because current funds won’t cover the cost of the most basic food, water, shelter and medical care needs in Pakistan:
WHO is providing an overview of the developing health crises in Pakistan. UNHCR is running several human interest stories on their flickr pages, including one about a family that doesn’t even have enough food to break the Ramadan fast that is just starting.
WHO headquarters in Geneva
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The World Health Organization (WHO) may soon declare the swine flu pandemic called out in 2009 over.
It is winter in the southern hemisphere where some new cases are still being being recorded. The organization says it is too early to determine if H1N1 virus activity in southern hemisphere countries “have transitioned to levels and patterns expected for seasonal influenza.”
Worldwide 18,499 confirmed cases of H1N1 flu have been recorded. Practically none are occuring in the northern hemisphere.
Links to other sites: Globe&Mail, Toronto Sun, WHO
WHO says over 50% population obese in 10 Pacific islands, causing host of health problems
Adolescents learn good eating habits at a youth centre in Port Vila, Vanuatu (photo: Unicef /Giacomo Pirozzi)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch.com) – Three Pacific Island regions, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia are home to 10 islands whose populations are suffering from growing health problems, with obesity at the root of the problem. Imported foods are the main culprit, says the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva.
WHO surveys show that in at least 10 Pacific island countries, more than 50 percent of the population is overweight.
Obesity prevalence ranges from more than 30% in Fiji to a “staggering 80 percent among women in American Samoa”, a territory of the USA, says the organization.
Overweight is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) equal to or more than 25, and obesity as a BMI equal to or more than 30.
“Promotion of traditional foods has fallen by the wayside. They are unable to compete with the glamour and flashiness of imported foods,” says Dr Temo K Waqanivalu, the WHO’s technical officer for nutrition and physical activity for the South Pacific.
Fewer imports and more fresh, local food, including fish and vegetables, are needed in people’s diets, he says.
Imported food in the past came mainly from Australia and New Zealand, but much of it now comes from China, Malaysia and the Philippines. These foods are often energy-dense and nutritionally poor, such as highly refined cereals and fatty meat, according to the Pacific Food Summit.
Lack of food safety regulations is a problem, with old, damaged and contaminated products arriving in the market as well as products with low mineral content that are high in sugar and fat.
The controversy surrounding the swine flu vaccines continues to grow.
The US Food and Drug Administration has announced that it will destroy 40 million doses worth an estimated $260 million.
The outdated vaccine, some of which expired 30 June, will be incinerated, while another 30 million more doses may go unused.
This means that about 43 percent of the supply for the US will have gone to waste.
Additional details: Associated Press/Yahoo
