Health

Youth Demand a Voice in Call-To-Action on Child Labour

By Lyse Comins
Ashley has vast work experience. She has laboured by the sweat of her brow in the blistering sun on the streets of Guatemala, in the open fields on farmlands and indoors, toiling for long hours to the hum of a sewing machine. Her work resume might be impressive to some – street trader, farmworker and tailor – but she, like 160 million children around the world, is trapped in child labour, working desperately to support her impoverished family and provide for her education.

As COVID Wanes, Tuberculosis Deaths Must Become Visible

By Angelique Luabeya Kany Kany
It is time to treat the scourge of Tuberculosis scourge with the same urgency as we did the COVID-19 pandemic.

New Medicines May Help End AIDS– but High Prices & Monopolies Could Keep the Poor Locked Out

By Matthew Kavanagh and Eamonn Murphy
Here’s the good news: there are a new set of breakthrough medicines to prevent and treat HIV, known as “long actings” because they can be taken every few months instead of every day, and they are coming on-stream. If, as they are rolled out, they are made available at scale, they could help save many lives and help end the AIDS pandemic.

Call to Invest ‘Serious Resources’ in Education, to Stem Tide of Child Labour

By Cecilia Russell
"Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to eliminate child labour." So said Dennis Sinyolo, Director of Education International's African Regional Office in Accra, Ghana adapting liberation icon and late South African president Nelson Mandela's famous quote about how education can change the world.

Child Labour: No Quick End to Children Trapped in Tobacco Production

By Judith Mackay and Leonce Dieudonne Leonce
Despite World Day Against Child Labour launched in 2002 by the International Labour Organization (ILO), little has changed over the past two decades for the millions of children who remain trapped.

Inequality Tightens Its Grip on the Most Vulnerable

By Baher Kamal
Please do not say you were not aware that the world produces enough food to feed all human beings on Earth, while nearly double the combined European Union’s population go to bed hungry… every single night.

Pakistan’s Campaign to Contain Polio in Face of Vaccine Hesitancy

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
Pakistan's North Waziristan district authorities have launched an aggressive vaccination drive after a polio case surfaced after 15 polio-free months in the country. The disease was detected in a 15-month-old toddler about 15 kilometers away from the Afghanistan border. This area was considered a Taliban militant’s hub until 2014.

Projections for a Pandemic Future: in Whose Interest?

By Nicoletta Dentico
In what has been defined a historic consensus decision aimed at protecting the world from future infectious diseases crises, on 1st December 2021, the special session of the World Health Assembly agreed to kickstart a global process to draft and negotiate a convention, agreement or other international instrument to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.

Most Maternal Deaths Are Preventable: How To Improve Outcomes in South Africa

The past 20 years have seen a significant decline in maternal mortality rates from 342 deaths to 211 per 100,000 globally . But every day, more than 800 women around the world die from complications of pregnancy and childbirth, up to 42 days after delivery. Most of these deaths are preventable.

Those Who Dare: Voices of Women in the MENA Region

By Sania Farooqui
When it comes to gender equality and development, the Middle East, North Africa (MENA) and the Arab States region continues to be in a paradoxical situation. While within the region, several laws, policies and programming focused on gender equality are growing, women’s representation in government jobs, corporate roles, and national programming seem to be dismissed. Healthcare, education have seen improvement, most countries have become tech inclusive as well, but access to hospitals and educational institutions –at times due to social programming or gender-related policies continues to prevent women from accessing them and using them.

Rural India Has a Diabetes Problem – What Is Causing it?

By Sweta Akundi
At a healthcare clinic in Thodathara, a village in the Thavanampalle mandal near Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh, Dr Vijay Kumar calls in his next patient. “He is the most disciplined man I know,” Dr Kumar says with a hint of pride.

Finance Drives World to Stagflation

By Anis Chowdhury and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
The world is being pressed by financial interests to raise interest rates, ostensibly to check inflation. After the US Federal Reserve started raising interest rates, more central banks have been doing likewise. Considering inflation’s contemporary causes, such ‘follow the leader’ central bank mimicry cannot check it except by slowing economies. Worse, this has meant taking on huge new risks, seriously damaging world economic prospects in the medium and long-term.

Revealed: The Shocking Extent of Exploitative Baby Formula Milk Marketing

By Baher Kamal
The world's leading health and children specialised organisations have once again sounded the alarm bell about what they classify as “shocking, insidious, exploitative, aggressive, misleading and pervasive” marketing tricks used by the baby formula milk business with the sole aim of increasing, even more, their already high profits.

Give Edible Insects a Chance as an Alternative High-Quality Protein Source, say Scientists

By Joyce Chimbi
Growing up in Samoya Village of Bungoma County in the Western part of Kenya, Elvis Wanjala has fond childhood memories of the rainy season, chasing and catching black-bellied winged termites in the rain.

Six Ways Rwanda Is Building Resilient and Sustainable Transport Systems

By Okechukwu Daniel Ogbonnaya and David Toovey
Over the last decade, Rwanda has invested in building efficient and resilient transport systems. Guided by the country’s Green Growth and Climate Resilience Strategy (GGCRS), the Government of Rwanda has carried out numerous initiatives to promote sustainable mobility and the green economy at large.

Pacific Community-Led Health Missions Arrive with Critical Support to Tonga and Kiribati Grappling with COVID-19 Surges

By Catherine Wilson
Before the pandemic emerged in 2020, health services in many Pacific Island countries were under-resourced, under-funded and under-staffed. Now following recent outbreaks of COVID-19, advancing the capacity and development of health and medical services in vulnerable nations, such as Tonga and Kiribati, is increasingly urgent.

Omicron-led Surge Tests China’s Zero Covid Policy

By Riya Shah and Arjun Kumar
When the Covid- 19 pandemic first broke out in Wuhan in 2020, no one imagined that it would wreak havoc on such a large scale. With over 6.2 million lives lost, countless infected and new variants emerging, the pandemic is still raging all around the world.

Bringing Seeds of Hope to Farmers

By Paul Teng and Genevieve Donnellon-May
Amidst a backdrop of rising food insecurity worldwide and a global food supply chain crisis, many countries are attempting to increase the level of food self-production. One improved input for farming which is receiving renewed attention is improved seed. The two most populous countries in the world, China and India, have recently made ground-breaking moves to improve their competitive position by developing new seeds which will improve their food production and increase resilience to climate change. So far, in 2022, new regulations on using biotechnology (genetic modification and gene editing) have been put in place by both countries to ultimately allow smallholder farmers to benefit from these new seeds.

Commitment to African Medicines Agency Needs More Than Words

By Johnpaul Omollo and Taonga Chilalika
Across Africa, local manufacturing and pharmaceutical companies are responding to the urgent need for locally produced medical products and technologies despite the existing regulatory challenges. We can support manufacturing capacity by expediting the establishment and operationalisation of the African Medicines Agency (AMA).

INDIA: Healthcare Inequities Exposed by COVID-19 Pandemic

By Ranjit Devraj
Public health specialists say that an ongoing wrangle between the Indian government and the World Health Organization (WHO) over the COVID-19 death toll in this country is symptomatic of a long-ailing public health delivery system.

UN Aims at People-Centered Governance in a Post-Pandemic World

By Simone Galimberti
The recently disseminated Zero Draft Ministerial Declaration of the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF)-- the main UN event to track the member states’ progress to achieve the Agenda 2030 slated to be held in the first half of July-- is a disappointment.
Next Page »