Category Archives: Society

Agencies fear hidden cholera deaths in Yemen as Covid-19 overwhelms clinics

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Thousands of deaths potentially missed as patients avoid health centres, with both diseases set to peak in coming weeks, warn NGOs

Aid agencies are warning that thousands of people in Yemen could be dying undetected from cholera as people are too frightened to seek treatment in health facilities overwhelmed by coronavirus.

Coronavirus cases in the war-torn country are due to peak in the coming weeks, but Oxfam has warned that health centres are seeing an unexpected drop in cholera cases, ahead of August’s rains when cholera will also increase.

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Know sweat: scientists solve mystery behind body odour

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University of York researchers trace the source of underarm aromas to a particular enzyme

Scientists have unravelled the mysterious mechanism behind the armpit’s ability to produce the pungent smell of body odour.

Researchers at the University of York traced the source of underarm odour to a particular enzyme in a certain microbe that lives in the human armpit.

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‘I can’t give in’: The Togolese nun caring for Aids patients amid Covid-19

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NGO chief and Catholic sister Marie-Stella Kouak is no stranger to crisis, but fears a ‘catastrophic’ disruption of HIV/Aids drugs

Dapaong is a buzzing, multi-religious city, 13 miles south of Togo’s border with Burkina Faso and more than 300 miles (500km) north of the capital, Lomé.

In and around the town, Marie-Stella Kouak is well-known. One of the few female community leaders, she is easily recognised by her booming laugh and the white nun’s veil on her head.

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‘I have to work’: arrivals from Spain vent anger at quarantine decision

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People arriving in Stansted tell of their surprise at having to now self-isolate for two weeks

People flying into Britain from Spain have attacked the government’s decision to impose a 14-day quarantine on people returning from the country, saying they were given no warning and that they felt safer in Spain.

As flights from Jerez, Alicante, Valencia and Palma landed in quick succession on Sunday afternoon at Stansted airport, passengers found themselves faced with the realisation that they were about to enter into an unexpected period of self-isolation.

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Over-40s in UK to pay more tax under plans to fix social care crisis

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Exclusive: Matt Hancock is advocate of plan to raise tax to cover cost of care in later life

Everyone over 40 would start contributing towards the cost of care in later life under radical plans being studied by ministers to finally end the crisis in social care, the Guardian can reveal.

Under the plan over-40s would have to pay more in tax or national insurance, or be compelled to insure themselves against hefty bills for care when they are older. The money raised would then be used to pay for the help that frail elderly people need with washing, dressing and other activities if still at home, or to cover their stay in a care home.

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Council of Europe ‘alarmed’ at Poland’s plans to leave domestic violence treaty

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Rights body condemns move to withdraw from treaty aimed at stopping violence against women

The Council of Europe has said it is alarmed that Poland’s rightwing government is moving to withdraw from a landmark international treaty aimed at preventing violence against women.

Poland’s justice minister, Zbigniew Ziobro, said on Saturday that he would begin preparing the formal process to withdraw from the Istanbul convention on Monday. The treaty is the world’s first binding instrument to prevent and tackle violence against women, from marital rape to female genital mutilation.

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‘We’re living in fear’: LGBT people in Italy pin hopes on new law

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Debate on long-awaited bill that would punish discrimination and hate crimes towards LGBT people opens on Monday

For 15 years, Marco and his boyfriend had lived together fairly peacefully in a town outside Rome. Then, in early June, a neighbour started harassing them.

“It began quite lightly, with him being provocative whenever we met in the street,” the 38-year-old said. “Then he came to our home and forced his way in, calling us ‘dirty faggots’. My boyfriend managed to get rid of him but he returned with a baton and threw himself against the door, repeating the same insults and threatening to set us alight when we were asleep.”

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Boris Johnson says coronavirus could have been handled differently

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PM concedes government did not understand the virus in ‘first few weeks and months’

Boris Johnson has conceded there were “things we could have done differently” over Covid-19, and admitted the government did not understand the virus in the “first few weeks and months”.

In a sometimes combative interview with the BBC, the prime minister repeatedly refused to discuss any lessons that could be learned before a possible second wave of Covid-19 this winter, saying it was not the moment to “run a kind of inquiry into what happened in the past”.

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UK reputation after DfID merger in ‘safe hands’ under Raab, says Trevelyan

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Outgoing international development secretary says Britain’s ‘world superpower’ status will remain after merger with FCO, despite fierce criticisms

Britain’s status as a world superpower in development is in “safe hands” under Dominic Raab, according to the international development secretary, as she prepares to leave her post.

In an interview with the Guardian, Anne-Marie Trevelyan expressed sadness at leaving the Department for International Development (DfID), whose work is “truly impactful” and “doing good”, she said. But she said she has seen passion and enthusiasm in the foreign secretary towards helping developing countries become stronger.

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Boris Johnson says ‘anti-vaxxers are nuts’

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Prime minister makes comments while promoting extension of free winter flu jabs

Boris Johnson has said people opposed to vaccinations are “nuts” as he promotes an expanded programme of flu jabs that ministers hope will ease pressure on the NHS if there is a second wave of coronavirus this winter.

Visiting a doctors’ surgery in London on Friday, the prime minister said to staff: “There’s all these anti-vaxxers now. They are nuts, they are nuts.”

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The Guardian view on population growth: a small planet needs big solutions | Editorial

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New research suggests that the global peak may be lower than expected. But the challenges will still be immense

In 1798, Thomas Malthus wrung his hands as he contemplated the growing mass of humanity, warning: “The power of population is so superior to the power of the earth to produce subsistence for man, that premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race.”

A few years after he wrote that essay, the global population hit 1 billion. Now, thanks to the exponential growth which he described, it is closing in on 8 billion. The scholar’s direst warnings, echoed by others through the years, have not come to pass. But his concerns about the strain on resources have been multiplied by the climate crisis, with greenhouse gas emissions rising, and global heating in turn causing land loss and deterioration.

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Covid-19 threatens access to abortions and contraceptives, experts warn

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Unplanned pregnancy rates have fallen globally, report finds, but coronavirus could endanger access to services

Rates of unplanned pregnancies have fallen around the world, according to new data published by health research organisation the Guttmacher Institute and the UN Human Reproduction Programme (HRP) on Wednesday.

Global rates of unintended pregnancies have fallen from 79 per 1,000 women aged 15 to 49 in 1990 to 64 in 2019, thanks in part to a concerted effort to increase access to contraceptives, but there are concerns that decades of progress in reducing the numbers risk being undone by Covid-19, as lockdown restrictions hamper health services.

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Donald Trump’s assault on the WHO is deeply worrying for global health | Peter Beaumont

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A diplomacy shaped around self-serving tittle-tattle now risks lives and undermines America’s standing in the world

The campaign by the Trump administration against the World Health Organization has often seemed faintly preposterous.

Over the months of the coronavirus pandemic its untruths and hyperbole have been dismissed by many as iterations of Trumpspeak, whose main purpose has been to distract from the US’s catastrophic response to Covid-19, which has claimed almost 140,000 lives and devastated the economy.

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Test and trace failing to contact thousands in England’s worst-hit areas

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Exclusive: proportion of close contacts being reached is below 80% in high infection areas

The government’s flagship test-and-trace system is failing to contact thousands of people in areas with the highest infection rates in England, raising further questions about the £10bn programme described by Boris Johnson as “world-beating”.

Local leaders and directors of public health are demanding more control over the tracing operation amid concerns that their ability to contain the virus is being put at risk.

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‘Coronavirus ruined everything’: the long wait for new limbs in Kurdistan

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Decades of war have resulted in a high demand for prosthetics – and patients are anxious to visit clinics as they finally reopen

Concentration is etched on Hussein’s face as he walks along a scuffed yellow line painted on the floor of the clinic’s rehabilitation room. He’s getting a feel for his new prosthetic.

Hussein lost his left leg below the knee in 1987 when he stepped on a landmine while fishing at Lake Dukan, around 100km (62 miles) east of Erbil in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. Mines and other unexploded remnants of successive wars litter the landscape, causing new injuries every year. More than half the clinic’s 15,100 patients are amputees. Roughly 4,600 of them lost limbs as a result of conflict – 2,500 of these to landmines.

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Are official figures overstating England’s Covid-19 death toll?

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PHE figures include deaths of anyone who tested positive, even if it was months ago

Matt Hancock has announced an urgent review into how Public Health England (PHE) counts Covid-19 deaths after discovering what appeared to be a serious issue in how rates are calculated.

Following the health secretary’s move on Friday, Yoon K Loke and Carl Heneghan, of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University, wrote in a blogpost: “It seems that PHE regularly looks for people on the NHS database who have ever tested positive, and simply checks to see if they are still alive or not. PHE does not appear to consider how long ago the Covid test result was, nor whether the person has been successfully treated in hospital and discharged to the community.”

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Revealed: NHS denied PPE at height of Covid-19 as supplier prioritised China

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Disclosures call into question UK’s reliance on ‘just in time’ logistics during pandemic

The NHS was deprived of large amounts of protective gear at the height of the coronavirus outbreak after a French company contracted to supply millions of masks allegedly prioritised more lucrative deals with deep-pocketed clients including a Chinese state-owned energy company.

A joint investigation by the Guardian and the French news website Mediapart has uncovered evidence suggesting the mask manufacturer Valmy failed to fulfil the terms of a £1.2m contract with the NHS to supply about 7m masks in the event of a pandemic.

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What happens when flu meets Covid-19?

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How seasonal viruses interact with the coronavirus is unknown – it may lessen or sharpen the pandemic – so flu vaccinations are vital

Optimists had hoped Covid-19 might not withstand the blistering heat of a British summer. However those hopes have faded: the virus staged a recent resurgence in Iran amid actual blistering temperatures, and has had no trouble persisting in sultry Singapore.

But what happens to Covid-19, and us, when the rain and chill – and flu and sniffles – of autumn set in? Especially, how will the annual winter flu epidemic play out amid a Covid-19 pandemic?

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Daily updates on English Covid-19 deaths paused amid accuracy concerns

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Government confirms PHE set no cut-off between time of testing and date of death

Daily updates on the coronavirus death toll in England have been paused amid growing concern that the numbers could have been exaggerated.

A message on the government’s website on Saturday said: “Currently the daily deaths measure counts all people who have tested positive for coronavirus and since died, with no cut-off between time of testing and date of death.

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