Politics & Policies
Donald Trump has been elected as the 45th President of the United States of America. There is concern that climate change regulations and commitments would be watered down and would take a back seat under his presidency.
Margaret Chan isn’t backing down in her last few months in office. Early this week, she engaged member states in her fourth — and last — financing dialogue in hopes of convincing them to increase their contributions to the World Health Organization.
In this election season science and health have taken a backseat. Worse, presidential candidate Donald Trump dismissed climate change as a Chinese hoax. His opponent, Hillary Clinton, vowed to dig up what the government knows about UFOs. Science is hardly getting its due.
In an effort to prevent surgical infections, the WHO has released the “Global Guidelines for the Prevention of Surgical Site Infection” that includes a list of 29 recommendations to combat the growing burden of healthcare associated infections.
Nigeria calls for urgent action on sustainable urban development.
The World Medical Association has released a statement in support of the taxes on junk foods and sugary drinks and bans on advertising to children to prevent and curb the rising burden of obesity.
Children with disabilities in rural areas have been especially hit by cuts to Medicaid that the Texas Legislature approved last year.
Programs, Grants & Awards
The 2016 Food Governance Conference was held between Nov 1 and Nov 3 in the University of Sydney, Australia.
Research
Trends in racial and ethnic disparities in antiretroviral therapy prescription and viral Suppression in the United States, from 2009–2013.
Snakebite is a major public health problem in agricultural communities in the tropics leading to acute local and systemic impairments with resultant disabilities. Snakebite related long-term musculoskeletal disabilities have been a neglected area of research. We conducted a population-based, cross-sectional study in an agricultural community to describe the chronic musculoskeletal disabilities of snake envenoming.
Historically, implementing nutrition policy has confronted persistent obstacles, with many of these obstacles arising from political economy sources. While there has been increased global policy attention to improving nutrition in recent years, the difficulty of translating this policy momentum into results remains.
A new study by Pettifor et al in Lancet Global Health showed that while cash transfers have impact on HIV risk reduction, the conditionality of the cash transfers does not advance the cause considerably.
A study published in Science shows a direct link between number of cigarettes smoked in a lifetime and the number of DNA mutations in tumors. The authors find that smoking one pack a day can lead to up to 150 damaging alterations to a smoker’s lung.
Diseases & Disasters
The Ebola epidemic that tore through West Africa in 2014 claimed 11,310 lives, far more than any previous outbreak. A combination of factors contributed to its savagery, among them a mobile population, crumbling public health systems, official neglect and hazardous burial practices.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said on Thursday it added seven new agents, including the HIV virus and an industrial solvent to its list of carcinogens.
Cholera can kill a person in a matter of hours. It’s a severe gastro-intestinal disease, and it can trigger so much diarrhea and vomiting that patients can rapidly become dehydrated. The water-borne disease has been around for centuries, and it remains a global health risk. According to the World Health Organization there are roughly 3 million cases a year and 90,000 deaths.
A boiling pot of global conditions, like ubiquitous travel and the growing populations of developing cities, have led to an outbreak of pandemics like Ebola, Zika, SARs, and even the flu over the past decade.
Providing increased access to contraception to women in Puerto Rico during the Zika outbreak would be a cost-saving measure, including avoiding $62.3 million in costs related to Zika-linked microcephaly, researchers from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Puerto Rico reported today.
After confirmation of the first Zika Virus case in Myanmar’s largest city, the Ministry of Health is going to release a statement advising women in the Yangon region to avoid getting pregnant in the next six months.
Technology
Genetic testing could help identify breast cancer patients at high risk for venous thromboembolism (VTE), according to a study published online Nov. 1 in Clinical Cancer Research.
Environmental Health
For about 3 billion of the world’s poorest people, the simple act of cooking dinner is fraught with risk. They burn wood, charcoal, dung or crop waste, often on open fires, fouling the air they breathe. It’s no small matter: Household air pollution from cooking fire is thought to be the world’s leading environmental cause of death and disability.
A new UNICEF report estimates that nearly 300 million children breathe extremely toxic air. Overall 2 billion children are estimated to breathe air that has been deemed “long term hazard.”
According to the new Global Lead Paint Report, many paints sold in 46 low and middle income countries contain dangerous levels of lead, including nearly 70% of paints tested in Philippines.
Equity & Disparities
Investing in human resources via education is essential to improving access to surgical and anesthetic care across the globe.
Basic cancer-fighting measures—for as little as $1.72 per person—could save hundreds of thousands of lives in poor countries, according to research published yesterday in The Lancet.
A clinical trial for an injectable male contraceptives was halted due to side effects that included mood changes, depression, pain at injection site and decrease in libido.
Maternal, Neonatal & Children’s Health
Women should see a doctor, nurse or trained midwife at least eight times during each pregnancy, with five of those visits in the last trimester, the World Health Organization said Monday as it issued 49 recommendations to prevent deaths in childbirth.
Eight of nine children exhibiting symptoms of a mysterious illness have been confirmed to be suffering from acute flaccid myelitis, a highly infectious polio-like disease that primarily strikes children, the Washington State Department of Health announced Friday.
A therapy that successfully treats two-thirds of children with chronic fatigue syndrome is being trialled for NHS use.
Diarrheal diseases are a major causes of child mortality and one of the main causes of medical consultation for children in sub-Saharan countries. This paper attempts to determine the risk factors and neighborhood inequalities of diarrheal morbidity among under-5 children in selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa over the period 1990–2013.
Stunting affects one-third of children under 5 years old in developing countries, and 14% of childhood deaths are attributable to it. A large number of risk factors for stunting have been identified in epidemiological studies. However, the relative contribution of these risk factors to stunting has not been examined across countries.
The number of preterm births in the United States has risen for the first time in the last 8 years from 9.57 to 9.63 in 2015.
A new study has ranked poor fetal growth in the womb as among the greatest risk factors associated with stunting among children. This study emphasizes the need to improve women’s health before and during a pregnancy.
The global news round up was prepared by the communications team.
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