Category: Health Protection

GENEVA, The World Health Organization on Monday appealed for $2.54 billion for its work in 2023 to help millions of people facing health emergencies around the world.

 

The UN health agency said that it was currently responding to an unprecedented number of intersecting health emergencies.

 

It pointed to the brutal war in Ukraine and the health impacts of conflicts in Yemen, Afghanistan, Syria and Ethiopia, as well as climate change related disasters like the monster floods that hit Pakistan last year and swelling food insecurity across the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.

 

And all of these emergencies, it stressed, overlap with the massive health system disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and outbreaks of other deadly diseases like measles and cholera.

 

“We’re witnessing an unprecedented convergence of crises that demands an unprecedented response,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said as the agency launched its appeal.

 

“The world cannot look away and hope these crises resolve themselves.”

 

He said the WHO was currently responding to 54 health crises around the world, 11 of which were ranked as the highest-possible level emergency, requiring a broad response.

 

Jarno Habicht, WHO’s representative in Ukraine, highlighted that the conflict-ravaged country had seen more than 700 attacks on healthcare, including strikes hitting hospitals and ambulances, since Russia launched its full-scale invasion nearly a year ago.

 

At the same time, massive attacks on critical infrastructure across Ukraine “means healthcare facilities cannot perform their duties” properly, he said, pointing out that they often are working without electricity, heating or water in “very difficult circumstances.”

 

The many health emergencies are happening as the need for humanitarian aid overall is skyrocketing.

 

The United Nations has estimated that a record 339 million people worldwide will need some form of emergency assistance this year — up nearly a quarter from 2022.

 

“Specialised medical supplies and expertise are needed immediately, if we are not to abandon the sick to disaster, disease and death,” said former British prime minister Gordon Brown, who serves as the WHO ambassador for global health financing.

 

“I want to plead with donors to respond urgently to this emergency appeal to fund vaccines, drugs treatments, equipment and medical expertise,” he said during the appeal event.

 

“Give hope a shot, inject optimism, inoculate us against more avoidable deaths.”

 

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

KILIFI (Kenya), At least four people were killed after a boat capsized in Kenya’s coastal town of Kilifi, local police confirmed on Sunday.

 

The boat lost control after being hit by strong waves on Saturday before capsizing in the Indian Ocean, Malindi Divisional Police Commander Solomon Odero said, adding that the boat was ferrying tourists who had gone for a dolphin watch expedition at the Watamu Marine National Park.

 

“There were two boats at the time of the incident, with each carrying almost a similar number of tourists. One was affected by the strong waves. Twenty-five of the passengers were rescued,” he said.

 

Odero said the rescued were hospitalized and stable, while some were later discharged.

 

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

DAR ES SALAAM, Nemes Tamiro, a 33-year-old Tanzanian student has died in the frontlines of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.

 

He was a student of the Russia Technological University who was jailed for drug-related offences.

 

His release from prison was conditioned on joining the Russian mercenary group, Wagner, and to accept deployment to Ukraine.

 

A family member confirmed the incident of how and why he joined the group.

 

“Nemes informed me and some other family members on joining Wagner, and we advised him not to, but he said he will join to have himself free,” the family member said.

 

“We last communicated with him on 17 October last year, [when he was] already a member of Wagner,” they added.

 

“We then got information from his friends over his death in late December and later we were officially informed by the Tanzania ambassador in Moscow,” they concluded.

 

He is the second African to have died in the war. The first being Zambian Lemekhani Nyirenda, also a student who died under similar circumstances.

 

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

MARSEILLE— The world’s oldest known person, French nun Lucile Randon, has died aged 118, a spokesman of a nursing home announced Tuesday.

Randon, known as Sister Andre, was born in southern France on Feb 11, 1904, when World War I was still a decade away.

She died in her sleep at the Sainte-Catherine-Laboure nursing home in Toulon, spokesman David Tavella said.

The sister was long feted as the oldest European, before the death of Japan’s Kane Tanaka aged 119 last year left her the longest-lived person on Earth.

Guinness World Records officially acknowledged her status in April 2022.

She grew up in a Protestant family as the only girl among three brothers, living in the southern town of Ales.

Sister Andre, who converted to Catholicism and was baptised at the age of 26, worked as a governess in Paris — a period she once called the happiest time of her life — for the children of wealthy families.

Driven by a desire to “go further”, she joined the Daughters of Charity order of nuns at the relatively late age of 41.

Sister Andre was then assigned to a hospital in Vichy, where she worked for 31 years before moving to Toulon along the Mediterranean coast.

In 2021 she survived catching Covid-19, which infected 81 residents of her nursing home.

It is likely that France’s new oldest person is now 112-year-old Marie-Rose Tessier, a woman from Vendee, longevity expert Laurent Toussaint said.

Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 in Arles, southern France, at the age of 122 holds the record for the oldest confirmed age reached by any human.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

UNICEF warns some 4 million children living near contaminated and stagnant waters in flood-affected districts of Pakistan are fighting for survival.

The U.N. children’s fund reports about 1.6 million children already were suffering from severe acute malnutrition and another 6 million from stunting before last year’s disastrous floods struck Pakistan.

The UNICEF representative in Pakistan, Abdullah Fadil, said the situation has likely worsened since then, putting many children at risk of dying. Speaking from the capital, Islamabad, he said 4 million children are facing a bitterly cold winter without heat and warm protective clothing.

Fadil notes families still are living under scraps of plastic in freezing conditions. He said children also are at risk of deadly diseases such as malaria and cholera in flooded areas.

“We feared initially malaria to be the biggest cause of death because of the stagnant water,” Fadil said. “Because we were able to provide bed nets and malaria medicines the crisis was averted. We estimate the mortality rates to be about three times higher than in normal times.”

Pakistan faces some of the world’s highest neo-natal deaths. The World Health Organization reports sub-Saharan Africa has the highest newborn mortality rate, followed by central and southern Asia.

Fadil said UNICEF also helped avert a cholera epidemic by providing clean drinking water and lifesaving treatment. Beyond health, he said education is a major area of concern. He noted 24,000 schools were washed away by the floods.

“We have established close to 1,000 temporary learning centers where we have about 90,000 children, a third of whom are actually first-time students,” Fadil said. “Pakistan has about 23 million children who are already out of school. We estimate due to the floods, an additional 2 million would have left and been out of school.”

Despite the ongoing situation, Fadil said UNICEF has received less than half the $173 million it needs to help millions of children recover from this climate-induced catastrophe. He said vulnerable communities require reliable access to health care, nutrition, education, protection and other essential services.

Source: Voice of America