Category: Health Protection

More countries have worked to eliminate dengue, leprosy and other neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) over the past decade, but greater efforts and investment are needed in the face of pandemic-related disruptions, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.

To mark World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day, the UN agency has released a report highlighting progress and challenges in delivering care for these 20 conditions, which mainly affect the world’s poorest people.

NTDs are caused by a variety of pathogens including viruses, bacteria, parasites, fungi and toxins, and can be deadly.  Other examples are Buruli ulcer, Chagas disease, chikungunya, rabies, scabies and yaws.

Stigma and hardship

They are mainly prevalent in tropical areas, primarily in locations where water safety, sanitation and access to healthcare are inadequate. These diseases often cause life-long stigma, and resulting economic hardship, and have devastating health, social and economic consequences.

Although nearly 180 countries and territories reported at least one case of NTDs in 2021, just 16 nations account for 80 per cent of the global burden. Globally, some 1.65 million people are estimated to require treatment for at least one of these diseases.

“Around the world, millions of people have been liberated from the burden of neglected tropical diseases, which keep people trapped in cycles of poverty and stigma,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO Director-General.

“But as this progress report shows, we still have a lot of work to do,” he added.

Building on progress

The report showed that the number of people requiring NTD interventions fell by 80 million between 2020 and 2021.

Furthermore, eight countries had eliminated at least one of these diseases during this period.  As of last year, the number stood at 47 countries, and more were on the road to achieving this target.

These accomplishments build on a decade of significant progress, said WHO, with 25 per cent fewer people requiring interventions in 2021 than in 2010.

Additionally, more than a billion people were treated for NTDs each year between 2016 and 2019.

The COVID-19 impact

However, the COVID-19 pandemic has also had significant impact on community-based interventions, access to health facilities, and on supply chains for healthcare products.

As a result, 34 per cent fewer people received treatment between 2019 and 2020, even if a general resumption of activities sparked an 11 per cent increase in recovery the following year, with roughly 900 million people treated.

In 2020, WHO’s governing body, the World Health Assembly, endorsed an NTD road map for the coming decade, and the report emphasizes the need for more action and investment to reverse delays and accelerate progress.

Accountability, financing and partnerships

Promoting country ownership and accountability, as well as sustainable and predictable financing, will be key to providing quality NTD services.

WHO also stressed the importance of multi-sectoral collaboration and partnerships.

Last week, the UN agency signed a new agreement with Gilead Sciences, a research-based American biopharmaceutical company, for the donation of 304,700 vials of AmBisome, an antifungal medicine used to treat visceral leishmaniasis in countries most impacted by the disease, such as Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Nepal, Somalia and South Sudan.

This new three-year collaboration, which extends a previous agreement to 2025, is estimated at $11.3 million and also will support improved coverage and access to diagnosis and treatment.

WHO urged more partners and donors to fill existing gaps that hamper the full-scale implementation of NTD activities at the global and local levels.

 

Source: United Nations

WASHINGTON — The discovery of an asteroid the size of a small shipping truck mere days before it passed Earth on Thursday, albeit one that posed no threat to humans, highlights a blind spot in our ability to predict those that could actually cause damage, astronomers say.

NASA for years has prioritized detecting asteroids much bigger and more existentially threatening than 2023 BU, the small space rock that streaked by 2,200 miles from the Earth’s surface, closer than some satellites. If bound for Earth, it would have been pulverized in the atmosphere, with only small fragments possibly reaching land.

But 2023 BU sits on the smaller end of a size group, asteroids 5-to-50 meters in diameter, that also includes those as big as an Olympic swimming pool. Objects that size are difficult to detect until they wander much closer to Earth, complicating any efforts to brace for one that could impact a populated area.

The probability of an Earth impact by a space rock, called a meteor when it enters the atmosphere, of that size range is fairly low, scaling according to the asteroid’s size: a 5-meter rock is estimated to target Earth once a year, and a 50-meter rock once every thousand years, according to NASA.

But with current capabilities, astronomers can’t see when such a rock targets Earth until days prior.

“We don’t know where most of the asteroids are that can cause local to regional devastation,” said Terik Daly, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

The roughly 20-meter meteor that exploded in 2013 over Chelyabinsk, Russia is a once-every-100-years event, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It created a shockwave that shattered tens of thousands of windows and caused $33 million in damage, and no one saw it coming before it entered Earth’s atmosphere.

Some astronomers consider relying only on statistical probabilities and estimates of asteroid populations an unnecessary risk, when improvements could be made to NASA’s ability to detect them.

“How many natural hazards are there that we could actually do something about and prevent for a billion dollars? There’s not many,” said Daly, whose work focuses on defending Earth from hazardous asteroids.

Avoiding a really bad day

One major upgrade to NASA’s detection arsenal will be NEO Surveyor, a $1.2 billion telescope under development that will launch nearly a million miles from Earth and surveil a wide field of asteroids. It promises a significant advantage over today’s ground-based telescopes that are hindered by daytime light and Earth’s atmosphere.

That new telescope will help NASA meet a goal assigned by Congress in 2005: detect 90% of the total expected amount of asteroids bigger than 140 meters, or those big enough to destroy anything from a region to an entire continent.

“With Surveyor, we’re really focusing on finding the one asteroid that could cause a really bad day for a lot of people,” said Amy Mainzer, NEO Surveyor principal investigator. “But we’re also tasked with getting good statistics on the smaller objects, down to about the size of the Chelyabinsk object.”

NASA has fallen years behind on its congressional goal, which was ordered for completion by 2020. The agency proposed last year to cut the telescope’s 2023 budget by three quarters and a two-year launch delay to 2028 “to support higher-priority missions” elsewhere in NASA’s science portfolio.

Asteroid detection gained greater importance last year after NASA slammed a refrigerator-sized spacecraft into an asteroid to test its ability to knock a potentially hazardous space rock off a collision course with Earth.

The successful demonstration, called the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), affirmed for the first time a method of planetary defense.

“NEO Surveyor is of the utmost importance, especially now that we know from DART that we really can do something about it,” Daly said.

“So by golly, we gotta find these asteroids.”

 

Source: Voice of America

GENEVA — Ahead of World Neglected Tropical Diseases Day Monday, the World Health Organization is calling for action to tackle these debilitating illnesses, which affect an estimated 1.65 billion people globally.

A diverse group of 20 parasitic and bacterial tropical diseases is categorized as neglected. This is because they disproportionally affect people who live in poor, remote communities and are not on the list of global health priorities.

Ibrahima Soce Fall is director of WHO’s Department of Neglected Tropical Diseases. He says these vector-borne diseases are transmitted by insects in areas that lack safe water, sanitation, and access to health care. He says they also are spread via contaminated food and water.

Fall says they cause immense suffering because of their disfiguring and disabling impact.

“If you take diseases like onchocerciasis, you know, so-called river blindness because it can lead to blindness. The same for trachoma. So, these are so many diseases that are fatal and very debilitating,” he said.

Trachoma is an eye disease that can cause permanent blindness.

Fall says these diseases do not attract the amount of investment needed to access health services or develop new tools for diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines.

He notes some of these ailments have been around for a very long time. For instance, the biblical disease, leprosy, still exists in 139 countries and dengue, which has been around for 800 years, remains prevalent in 129 nations.

Despite the many challenges, progress is being made in the elimination of the NTDs. WHO reports the number of people requiring NTD interventions fell by 80 million between 2020 and 2021. It finds 47 countries have eliminated at least one NTD and more countries are in the process of achieving this target.

According to the Carter Center, there were only 13 human cases of Guinea worm disease last year, pushing the illness closer to eradication. The Atlanta-based center was co-founded by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn Carter. When it began leading the international campaign to eradicate Guinea worm in 1986, there were an estimated 3.5 million cases in at least 21 countries in Africa and Asia.

WHO officials say the goal it has set to eliminate at least one neglected tropical disease in 100 countries by 2030 can be achieved. It says the scientific community has the tools and the know-how to save lives and prevent suffering. But WHO says nations need to act together and invest in helping get rid of this dreaded group of diseases.

 

Source: Voice of America

Brazzaville, Africa is emerging from the New Year travel season without a significant upsurge in COVID-19 for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

 

A total of 20 552 new cases were recorded in the first three weeks of January 2023, a 97% slump compared with the same period last year despite an uptick in cases in South Africa, Tunisia and Zambia over the past two weeks. The drop in reported new cases may be partially due to low COVID-19 testing rates, but of critical importance is that hospitalization for severe illness, as well as deaths have reduced significantly. As of 22 January 2023, there were 88 COVID-19-associated deaths reported in the region compared with 9096 in the same period 2022.

 

“For the first time since COVID-19 shook our lives, January is not synonymous with a surge. Africa is embarking on the fourth year of the pandemic with the hope of moving past the emergency response mode,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Africa. “However, with variants continuing to circulate, it’s important that countries stay alert and have measures in place to effectively detect and tackle any upsurge in infection.”

 

In 2022, Africa witnessed no major pandemic peaks, with upsurges lasting an average of three weeks before petering out. In contrast, the continent experienced two pandemic waves driven by more transmissible and lethal variants in 2021.

 

With the gradual slowdown in cases over the past year, a low-level transmission of the virus is expected to continue in the coming months with possible occasional upticks. It is crucial that countries maintain capacities to detect and respond effectively to any unusual surges in cases.

 

Over the past year, while African countries stepped up efforts to broaden vaccination, only 29% of the continent’s population has completed the primary series of vaccination as of 22 January 2023, up from 7% in January 2022. However, vaccination among adults aged 18 years and above rose from 13% in January last year to 47% currently.

 

Nonetheless, just four countries in the African region have vaccinated more than 70% of their population, 27 have vaccinated between 10% and 39%, while 11 have reached between 40% and 70% of the population. Vaccination among high-risk populations has seen some progress, with 41% of health workers fully vaccinated in 28 reporting countries, and 38% of older adults in 23 countries.

 

To further increase coverage, in addition to vaccination campaigns, it is important to integrate COVID-19 vaccination into routine health care services that take the needs of the most vulnerable into account. So far, 12 African countries have started integrating COVID-19 vaccination as part of regular health services.

 

“As the pandemic’s trajectory evolves, so should our approach. We are supporting countries to set up effective ways to ensure that COVID-19 vaccines are available, accessible and provided for the long run,” said Dr Moeti. “We know from experience that huge immunization gaps can provide a perfect springboard for the resurgence of vaccine-preventable infections. Even though COVID-19 cases are falling the pandemic can take an unexpected turn. But we can count on vaccines to ward off a catastrophic outcome.”

 

COVID-19 vaccination remains critical in protecting against severe illness and death, as the virus remains in circulation and continues to mutate.

 

In Africa, Botswana and South Africa are the only countries to have detected the XBB.1.5 Omicron sub-variant, one of the sub-lineages with public health implications. Genomic sequencing has slowed down as COVID-19 testing rates have declined. Over the past week, just three countries met the WHO benchmark of five tests per 10 000 population per week compared with 25 in the same period in 2022.

 

So far this year, 1896 sequences have been submitted. In the same period last year 7625 sequences were carried out. Sequencing is crucial to keeping track of variants as well as helping to mount timely and effective response.

 

Dr Moeti spoke today during a press conference. She was joined by Hon Wilhelmina Jallah, Minister of Health, Liberia; and Professor Tulio de Oliveira, Centre for Epidemic Response & Innovation (CERI), Stellenbosch University, South Africa.

 

Also on hand from WHO Regional Office for Africa to answer questions were Dr Thierno Balde, Regional COVID-19 Incident Manager; Dr Phionah Atuhebwe, Vaccines Introduction Medical Officer; and Dr Patrick Otim, Health Emergency Officer, Acute Events Management Unit.

 

Source: World Health Organization

VIENNA, Evidence is emerging that climate-related disasters are becoming a cause of human trafficking as criminal gangs exploit a growing number of uprooted people, the UN said Tuesday.

 

The continuing war in Ukraine is also another risk factor for increased human trafficking, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said in a report.

 

“Climate change is increasing vulnerability to trafficking,” the UNODC report said.

 

“While a systematic global analysis of the impact of climate change in trafficking in persons is missing, community level studies in different parts of the world point at weather induced disasters as root causes for trafficking in persons,” it said.

 

The report is based on data from 141 countries collected from 2017 to 2020, and the analysis of 800 court cases.

 

The impact of climate change “disproportionally” affected poor farming, fishing and other communities mainly relying on the extraction of natural resources for their livelihoods, the report said.

 

Once “deprived of their means of subsistence and forced to flee their community,” people were becoming easy prey for traffickers, Fabrizio Sarrica, the report’s main author told a press briefing.

 

In 2021 alone, climate-related disasters internally displaced more than 23.7 million people, while many others fled their countries altogether.

 

As entire regions of the world are at risk of becoming “increasingly uninhabitable,” millions will face “high risk of exploitation along migration routes,” the UN report said.

 

The UN drugs agency noted that an increase in cases of human trafficking had been observed in Bangladesh and the Philippines after devastating cyclones and typhoons displaced millions.

 

Droughts and floods in Ghana, and the Caribbean region — subject to hurricanes and rising sea levels — were also forcing many to migrate.

 

While most of the victims of trafficking resulting from conflicts originated from Africa and the Middle East, a potentially “dangerous” situation is simultaneously building up in Ukraine as millions flee the war-torn country.

 

“The challenge is how to deal with human trafficking arising from war and instability,” Ilias Chatzis, the head of the human trafficking and migrant smuggling section at UNODC, said.

 

With regard to Ukraine, helping neighbouring countries and increasing support to the Ukrainian authorities is equally important, Chatzis added.

 

The Covid-19 pandemic limited the ability to detect cases, especially in low-income countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa, the report added.

 

Faced with the closure of public venues such as bars and clubs due to health restrictions, certain forms of trafficking, in particular sexual exploitation, have been pushed into “less visible and less safe locations”.

 

For the first time since data collection began in 2003, the number of victims detected worldwide fell in 2020, dropping by eleven percent compared to 2019, the Vienna-based UNODC said.

 

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK