Category Archives: World Health Organization

South Korea screens thousands of religious sect members for coronavirus

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Country confirms more than 430 cases as WHO head voices concern over fifth death in Iran

Thousands of members of a secretive religious sect in South Korea are being screened for the new coronavirus after more than 430 cases were confirmed in the country by officials, one of several fresh clusters of the disease globally.

More than 78,000 people around the world have been infected by the Covid-19 virus, with most cases in mainland China, though clusters that have unclear origins have emerged in Singapore, Iran and South Korea.

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Coronavirus: ‘Window of opportunity narrowing,’ says WHO director – video

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Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, has expressed concerned over the ‘narrowing window of opportunity’ to tackle Covid-19, and has urged the international community not to squander it. With four new cases in Iran, concern has increased about the epidemic spreading across the Middle East, and the sharp devaluation of the Iranian rial means it will be hard for its government to throw the same resources at the epidemic as China has

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Coronavirus: window of containment ‘narrowing’ after Iran deaths, WHO warns

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Virus is spreading in Middle East, with confirmed cases in Lebanon and Israel

Four Iranians have died after contracting the coronavirus, with health authorities warning it has spread to multiple cities, while Israel and Lebanon declared their first domestic cases as the deadly epidemic spreads across the Middle East.

Asked on Friday if the new cases put the crisis at a tipping point, the World Health Organization director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the “window of opportunity is narrowing, so we need to act quickly before it closes completely”.

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The world is failing to ensure children have a ‘liveable planet’, report finds

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Children in biggest carbon-emitting nations are healthiest, while those with tiny environmental footprints suffer twofold from poor health and living at the sharp end of the climate crisis

Every country in the world is failing to shield children’s health and their futures from intensifying ecological degradation, climate change and exploitative marketing practices, says a new report.

The report says that despite dramatic improvements in survival, nutrition, and education over the past 20 years, “today’s children face an uncertain future”, with every child facing “existential threats”.

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China’s handling of coronavirus is a diplomatic challenge for WHO

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Beijing’s draconian measures to contain outbreak have delayed global transmission

The World Health Organization is having to perform a diplomatic balancing act over the new coronavirus outbreak, caught between China – whose draconian measures to contain the disease have delayed transmission to the rest of the world –and China’s critics, who say its behaviour is typical of its disregard for human rights.

At every press briefing, WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has defended China’s handling of the epidemic in the face of critical questions, very often from US journalists. At the end of January, when Tedros declared a public health emergency of international concern – having put it off a week earlier under what was assumed to be pressure from Beijing – he praised China for protecting the rest of the world.

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Huge rise in coronavirus cases casts doubt over scale of epidemic

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China reports 13,332 additional cases due to a change in how authorities are counting them

The true scale of the epidemic caused by the new coronavirus in Hubei province has been thrown into doubt after the Chinese authorities reported more than 13,300 extra cases going back over an unknown number of days or weeks.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said the huge jump in cases in Hubei, bringing the total to more than 60,000 worldwide, was due to a change in the way Chinese authorities was counting them.

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Coronavirus outbreak ‘could still go in any direction’, says WHO director – video

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The World Health Organization director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said at a briefing on Wednesday that although the number of newly confirmed cases of coronavirus reported from China had stabilised over the past week, the outbreak 'could still go in any direction'. He also confirmed that Cambodia has agreed to accept the Westerdam cruise ship, which has been stranded at sea for several days over virus fears

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African countries braced for ‘inevitable’ arrival of coronavirus

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Health centres step up preparations as World Health Organization raises fears about ability to cope with major outbreak

African health authorities are stepping up preparedness for coronavirus after the head of the World Health Organzation described the outbreak as a “very grave threat for the rest of the world”.

The number of African countries that can test for the virus tripled to 15 this week, with more expected to have testing labs up and running in the coming days. The head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said health centres were on “high alert” for new cases.

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Coronavirus a test of global solidarity, says WHO director – video

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Tedros Adhanom, head of the World Health Organization, calls the coronavirus outbreak a 'test of political solidarity' against a 'common enemy that does not respect borders or ideologies', as well as a test of financial and scientific solidarity. The epidemic has killed more than 1,000 people and infected more 40,000. 

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The coronavirus lays bare the limits of WHO’s health diplomacy with China

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The global body is accused of failing to act fast to halt epidemic but the true cost of doing politics with Beijing is still unknown

On social media this week the insults were flying thick and fast, some tinged with racism, but all with a common theme: how the World Health Organization, and its head, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, was effectively doing the bidding of the Chinese government in the midst of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.

It is a charge that has also been expressed in less offensive terms elsewhere in columns and articles, some of which have focused on whether, in praising China’s response to the deadly Wuhan coronavirus outbreak during a visit to Beijing, Tedros allowed himself to become complicit in China’s flawed handling of the outbreak in its early days?

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Hongkongers take no chances with deadly coronavirus – in pictures

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For Hong Kong people, the memories of the Sars outbreak are still fresh. In 2003 there were 1,755 Sars cases and 299 deaths (according to the World Health Organisation). With the threat of the coronavirus outbreak declared a global emergency, Hongkongers are taking all precautions. Most people are wearing masks, others goggles or double masks. Airports and the subways are screening passengers for high temperatures. People are buying masks, hand sanitiser and even food in bulk

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Whole world must be ready to deal with coronavirus, says WHO

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Countries urged to be on alert as number of confirmed cases passes 6,000

The whole world must be on alert to deal with the spread of coronavirus, the World Health Organization has said as it urged countries to prepare so that they are ready to detect any cases that occur and isolate and treat the sick.

WHO will reconvene its expert committee on Thursday to decide whether to declare the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern. There are now 6,065 confirmed cases of viral pneumonia caused by the virus and 132 deaths, all of them in China.

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China’s Sars-like illness worries health experts

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China’s viral pneumonia outbreak may have jumped species barrier, raising fears of pandemic

The finding that the outbreak of viral pneumonia in China that has struck 59 people may be caused by a coronavirus, the family of viruses behind Sars, which spread to 37 countries in 2003, causing global panic and killing more than 750 people, means that health authorities will be watching closely.

China says the illness is not Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome), nor Mers (Middle East respiratory syndrome), both of which are caused by coronaviruses, and so far it appears milder than both. Unlike Sars, it does not appear to spread easily between humans and unlike Mers, which has a mortality rate of about 35%, nobody has died.

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142,000 died from measles last year, WHO estimates

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Number of cases reported so far this year is three times higher than at same stage in 2018

The worldwide surge in deadly measles outbreaks is showing no sign of abating, with nearly 10 million cases and 142,000 deaths last year, according to new estimates, and three times more cases reported so far this year than at the same stage in 2018.

Most of those dying are small children, and thousands more suffer harm including pneumonia and brain damage. New scientific evidence shows survivors are at greater risk soon afterwards because their immune system is impaired.

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Children bear the brunt as the world’s biggest measles epidemic sweeps Congo

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Children under the age of five account for 90% of deaths as disease claims 5,000 lives in less than a year

More than 5,000 people, mostly children, have been killed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in what is currently the world’s biggest measles epidemic.

Measles, which is preventable through vaccination, has spread to all 26 provinces of the country, which is also battling a 15-month-long Ebola epidemic.

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More than 80% of adolescents not active enough, warns WHO

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Sedentary lifestyles focused on screens are jeopardising health, says World Health Organization

More than 80% of adolescents worldwide are not active enough, putting their health at risk by sitting focused on a screen rather than running about, say World Health Organization (WHO) researchers.

The proportion of insufficiently active girls in 27 countries rose to more than 90% in 2016, the latest year for which figures are available. There was a significant gender gap, with girls lagging behind boys in physical activity, in all but four countries – Afghanistan, Samoa, Tonga and Zambia.

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Doctors call for tighter control of traditional Chinese medicine

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Exclusive: European experts fear WHO recognition will encourage use of unproven therapies

Europe’s leading doctors are to call for tighter regulation of traditional Chinese medicine, anxious that recent recognition by the World Health Organization will encourage the use of unproven therapies that can sometimes be harmful.

The Federation of European Academies of Medicine (FEAM) and the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council will issue a joint statement on Thursday urging the WHO to clarify how traditional Chinese medicine and other complementary therapies should be used.

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Simple eye care could improve sight of more than 1 billion people – report

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Operation could have corrected vision of many ‘overnight’, while 800 million struggle because they lack access to glasses, according to WHO

More than 1 billion people are needlessly losing their sight because of a lack of simple eye care, according to a landmark report on vision by the World Health Organization.

The research has revealed a wide inequality gap for sight and eye conditions. Rates of blindness in low- and middle-income countries are up to eight times higher than in wealthy countries, with people living in rural areas, ethnic minorities, women and older people suffering disproportionately.

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US attack on WHO ‘hindering morphine drive in poor countries’

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Claims have hurt efforts to help people around world in acute pain, say palliative care experts

An attack on the World Health Organization (WHO) by US politicians accusing it of being corrupted by drug companies is making it even more difficult to get morphine to millions of people dying in acute pain in poor countries, say experts in the field.

Representatives of the hospice and palliative care community said they were stunned by the Congress members’ report, which they said made false accusations and would affect people suffering in countries where almost no opioids were available.

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Air pollution particles found on foetal side of placentas – study

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Research finds black carbon breathed by mothers can cross into unborn children

Air pollution particles have been found on the foetal side of placentas, indicating that unborn babies are directly exposed to the black carbon produced by motor traffic and fuel burning.

The research is the first study to show the placental barrier can be penetrated by particles breathed in by the mother. It found thousands of the tiny particles per cubic millimetre of tissue in every placenta analysed.

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