Health

Northeast Nigeria: Urgent Need to Combat Deadly Cholera Outbreaks

By Janet Cherono
The number of people who have been affected by cholera in northeast Nigeria has increased to 10,000. The disease is spreading quickly in congested displacement camps with limited access to proper sanitation facilities.

Ambitious Agenda, Ambitious Financing? UNGA Shows a Long Way Still to Go for SDGs

By John Garrett and Kathryn Tobin
There was a much-needed focus on financing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the September 2018 opening of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).

Cholera Threatens a Comeback Worldwide

By Anna Kucirkova
Cholera outbreaks across history regularly killed a hundred thousand or more. It isn’t well known today because it was essentially eliminated in the Western world.

“Governments are Starting to See that Organic Food Policy Works”

By Maged Srour
Many countries and farmers around the world are not readily making the switch to organic farming. But the small Himalayan mountain state of Sikkim, which borders Tibet, Nepal and Bhutan, is the first 100 percent organic farming state in the world. 

Is the United Nations in Kenya Fit For Purpose?

By Yusuf Hassan
The United Nations globally is witnessing some of the most ambitious reforms led by the UN Secretary General Mr. Antonio Guterres. Most relevant to us in Kenya is the entire reform of the development system and how the UN will adapt to a fast-changing development environment.

Big Brands Are Fuelling the Business of Nutrition

By Dr Myriam Sidibe and Jane Nelson
Food is an increasingly hot topic, no matter if you are rich or poor. Malnutrition – including undernutrition, overweight and obesity – affects 1 in 3 people around the world.

The value of a health scheme

By Vani S. Kulkarni

 

The challenges for the success of Ayushman Bharat are more than just at the financial and infrastructural level On September 24, the government launched the grand government-funded healthcare scheme, the Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY). While some see its ambitious goals as its main strength, others are sceptical given the inadequate funding for the scheme, the weak infrastructure of primary health care centres, and the time required for the goals to be accomplished. However, nobody disputes the imperative of an insurance scheme as vast as the PMJAY, since every year about 36 million families, or 14% of households, face a medical bill that is equal to the entire annual living expenses of one member of the family. This frequently pushes many families into penury.

The Invisible, Hungry Hand

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
The very people who help put food on our tables often face numerous human rights violations, forcing them go to bed hungry.

Rich in Agriculture, Madagascar Suffers from Extreme Malnutrition

By Hanitranirina Rarison
As much as 80 percent of Madagascar’s population of 24 million people is involved in agriculture and the country’s economy largely depends on the sector, yet 48 percent of households are faced with food insecurity according to the National Nutrition Office (NNO). Over 70 percent of households live below the national poverty line of 535,603 Malagasy ariary per year (1 U.S. dollar equals 3,447.50 ariary).

Did post-Soviet Russians drink themselves to death?

By Vladimir Popov and Jomo Kwame Sundaram
Although initially obscured by The Economist, among others, the sudden and unprecedented increase in Russian adult male mortality during 1992-1994 is no longer denied. Instead, the debate is now over why?Having advocated ‘shock therapy’, a ‘big bang’, ‘sudden’ or rapid post-Soviet transition, Jeffrey Sachs and others have claimed that the sudden collapse in Russian adult male life expectancy was due to a sudden increase in alcohol consumption, playing into popular foreign images of vodka-binging Russian men.

The Right to Choose

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
Reproductive choice can transform the world and our goals towards a sustainable society, a new report says.

Zero Hunger: Our Actions Today Are Our Future Tomorrow

By José Graziano da Silva
Just three years ago, in September 2015, all United Nations Member States approved the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The eradication of hunger and all forms of malnutrition (Sustainable Development Goal number 2) was defined by world leaders as a cardinal objective of the Agenda, a sine qua non condition for a safer, fairer and more peaceful world.

Women & Youth Key to Achieving Agenda 2030 in South-South Cooperation

By Siddharth Chatterjee
By 2050 Africa will have 830 million young people. Many countries in the global south, India included are seeing a youth(men and women) bulge. To reap a demographic dividend countries in the global south need to share and exchange knowledge to leapfrog socio-economic transformation.

TB Remains World’s Single Largest Infectious Killer, says WHO

By Mandy Slutsker
A disease that we know how to prevent, treat, and cure has become the world’s leading infectious killer: tuberculosis (TB), an airborne bacterial infection.

World Mental Health Day: IOM Honours Migrants’ Resilience During and After Difficult Journeys

By International Organization for Migration
Today, on World Mental Health Day, IOM would like to honour all the migrants who stand strong in the face of adversity and uphold human rights and values. Migration should be a positive experience, but often isn’t. As people move in search of opportunity, or in pursuit of new adventures, too often their journeys are characterized by insecurity and sometimes physical danger, especially for those who are pushed to leave their countries of origin due to abuse or human rights violations that harm their mental health.

Over and Under Nutrition: Two Sides of an Unhealthy Coin

By Tharanga Yakupitiyage
A dramatic shift in the way we eat and think about food is more urgent than ever to prevent further environmental degradation and an even larger health epidemic.   

Deaf or Dead? The Unbearable Choice for some TB Patients

By Phumeza Tisile
Like death, hearing loss is irreversible. I never imagined that I would have to choose between the two until seven years ago when I became infected with tuberculosis (TB), a contagious disease caused by an airborne bacterium.

Making Every Euro Count in the Fight Against Malnutrition

By José Graziano da Silva
Everybody wants to end hunger. That is what all UN-member countries stated when signing the 2030 Agenda for a better world: the second of its 17 goals aims at eradicating all forms of malnutrition (which include overweight, obesity or micronutrient deficiencies) and ensuring that everybody has access to nutritious and healthy foods.

Local Communities in Mexico Show Ways to Fight Obesity

By Emilio Godoy
Manuel Villegas is one of the peasant farmers who decided to start planting amaranth in Mexico, to complement their corn and bean crops and thus expand production for sale and self-consumption and, ultimately, contribute to improving the nutrition of their communities.

Entrepreneurial about Gender Equality

By Hong Joo Hahm
Asia and the Pacific needs more women entrepreneurs. Women’s economic empowerment and gender equality depend on it, as does the inclusive economic growth needed to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. This drives a new initiative by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, generously supported by Global Affairs Canada, focused on improving women entrepreneurs’ access to finance in our region.

A UN High-Level Meeting May See Hopes to End Tuberculosis

By Bobby John, MD
In the early months of 1993, there was frenetic activity within the Geneva headquartered WHO’s Communicable Diseases program, to get Tuberculosis designated as a Global Emergency.
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