The report of an Ebola patient in the busy travel hub of Goma heightened the sense of urgency during a high-level meeting in Geneva on Monday, where global response leaders met to evaluate the crisis. It also spurred the decision to meet for a fourth time to reassess the level…
With the Ebola crisis continuing in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and amid global calls for a “reset” on the international response, top officials will gather in Geneva on Monday for a high-level meeting organized jointly by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of…
An internal United Nations document that appears to question an existing ban on tobacco company engagement with the UN is raising a few eyebrows, following its publication by journalist Colum Lynch at Foreign Policy. The memo from Michael Møller, the outgoing director of the UN Office at Geneva (UNOG), was…
The Doctors Without Borders (MSF) organization says Ebola isn’t the only crisis in the Ituri province of Democratic Republic of Congo, and describes the complex situation as unprecedented in its latest appeal for help from the international community. “This is not the first time there are important humanitarian needs in…
Some 35 million people suffer from drug use disorders across the globe, according to the newly released World Drug Report 2019, and the higher numbers – especially where opioid use is concerned – are derived in part from a 2017 drug use survey in Nigeria (as well as India) that…
The death toll in Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ebola outbreak now has passed the 1,500 mark, according to the Ministry of Health’s latest update. They include 39 fatalities among 122 health worker cases, three of them in the Lubero health district of North Kivu province – a community that’s seen…
The Gambia was never the only nation where fraudulent claims to cure HIV infection were promoted, but the actions of former president Yahya Jammeh made it one of the most egregious examples. The harms caused by Jammeh’s herbal-based Presidential Alternative Treatment Program (PATP), launched in 2007, are now the focus…
Although the World Health Organization decided Friday that the Ebola crisis does not yet warrant an international emergency declaration, the outbreak continues in Democratic Republic of Congo where they’ve now reached a total of 2,143 cases. Among them are 1,427 fatalities, according to the daily update from the Congolese Ministry…
The World Health Organization plans an emergency meeting on Friday, following the news that Ebola has spread from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo into Uganda. WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the International Health Regulations (IHR) Emergency Committee will meet in Geneva to determine if the spread of the…
The World Health Organization is promoting the first-ever World Food Safety Day, a United Nations initiative rooted in the theme that “food safety is everyone’s business.” Every year, an estimated 600 million people become ill after eating food contaminated by bacteria, viruses, parasites or chemical substances. Unsafe food also hinders…
As the United Nations marks World Environment Day, this year’s theme focuses on air pollution – and that’s a significant challenge on the African continent. A recent study from NASA in the United States found some 780,000 premature African deaths per year were linked to air pollution from different causes….
The number of Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo now exceeds 2,000, according to the Congolese Ministry of Health in its Monday update. There are 14 new confirmed cases, half of them at Mabalako, adding to a count that now reaches 2,008 including 94 probable cases in the…
Nigeria will enact strict tobacco control provisions that have been tabled for four years, according to its ministry of health, which publicly announced provisions on Friday in conjunction with World No Tobacco Day and the World Health Organization. The country’s national assembly ratified the 2015 National Tobacco Control Act provisions…
Researchers in Burkina Faso and the United States say they’ve taken a big step forward in potentially reducing Africa’s malaria risk, by successfully killing off mosquitoes using a technique that relies on genetic manipulation to make an existing fungus threat more lethal to them. The researchers tested their theory in…
Religious leaders in the Congolese city of Butembo launched a two-day symposium on Thursday that brings together the groups resistant to the Ebola intervention and its workers, in hopes of reducing violent attacks and improving response outcomes. The meeting follows a visit to Butembo earlier this week by David Gressly,…