TheNewsGuru

Tag: WHO

  • ‘Over 1m sexually transmitted infections recorded daily’

    ‘Over 1m sexually transmitted infections recorded daily’

    The world has failed to combat sexually transmitted bacterial infections in the past few years, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday in a study that estimates one million new cases every day.

    The annual total of 376 million infections with chlamydia, gonorrhoea, trichomoniasis and syphilis is based on data from 2016.

    It is about five per cent higher than the UN health agency’s previous global estimate from 2012.

    “We consider this a hidden epidemic, a silent epidemic, a dangerous epidemic that is persistent globally,’’ WHO epidemiologist Melanie Taylor told a news conference in Geneva.

    These four diseases can be cured, but if they are left untreated, patients can develop neurological and cardiovascular problems as well as infertility.

    In addition, pregnant women who get infected are at risk of stillbirth.

    “Since most people do not develop symptoms, infections often go unnoticed, allowing them to spread further,’’ Taylor said.

    The WHO recommended the use of condoms, sex education, and improved disease screening in developing countries as ways to fight these four diseases.

    The report did not cover the sexually transmitted viruses HIV, hepatitis B, herpes and human papillomavirus.

  • Newly launched toolkit will protect you from hearing loss

    The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) on Thursday launched a safe listening toolkit that will serve to protect music lovers from hearing loss.

    TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports the toolkit for safe listening devices and systems was launched at a gathering of staff from WHO and ITU in celebration of the power of sounds and music.

    “We all love music, it is one of the things that makes life worth living. But you can have too much of a good thing. There is a saying in our language: even honey is bitter if you eat too much” said WHO Director General, Dr Tedros Ghebreyesus.

    A billion teenagers and young adults globally are at risk of developing hearing loss because they listen to music too long and too loud. Rising incomes and greater access to technology are increasing the numbers of people at risk, Tedros explained.

    Once hearing loss due to loud sounds sets in, it cannot be reversed. Such hearing loss, if unaddressed, can greatly impact one’s ability to communicate, gain education or find and hold suitable employment.

    The toolkit, with three sets of features, provides practical guidance to support member States, industry partners and civil society groups to use and implement.

    The first feature is a software that tracks how much and how long you are listening, and tells you how much sound you are getting.

    The second is a safety feature that includes automatic volume reduction and parental control — like giving people an optional safety belt in their device.

    The third feature is about making this information available to the user at the touch of the fingertip, so users can find out how much sound they have consumed today, or over the last week.

     

  • 420m people have diabetes, says WHO

    No fewer than 420 million adults have diabetes, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said, adding that the number has been increasing steadily over the last three decades.

    WHO said in its Global Report on Diabetes that the global prevalence of adult diabetes has nearly quadrupled since 1980.

    The UN health agency, therefore, called on people to “eat healthily, be physically active and avoid excessive weight gain”.

    Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin, or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces, which leads to an increased concentration of glucose in the blood.

    The global health body said: “Around 1.6 million deaths can be directly attributed to diabetes each year.

    “Diabetes is a major cause of blindness, kidney failure, heart attack, stroke and lower limb amputation”.

    WHO Spokesperson, Fadela Chaib, said the prevalence of diabetes was largely due to changes in lifestyle.

    Chaib said: “We are eating more heavy foods, full of fat and sugar; we are less physically active; and we have a more sedentary way of living.”

    As one of the leading causes of death globally, diabetes is a major public health problem, one of four priority non-communicable diseases targeted for action by world leaders, according to WHO.

    Even when blood glucose levels are not high enough to warrant a diagnosis of diabetes, damage can occur to the body, elevating the risk of cardiovascular disease.

    In 2012 diabetes took 1.5 million lives and higher-than-optimal levels of blood glucose took another 2.2 million.

    Of the 3.7 million people who died in that year, 43 per cent occurred before the age of 70.

    “The percentage of deaths attributable to high blood glucose or diabetes that occurs prior to age 70 is higher in low- and middle-income countries than in high-income countries,” WHO cited in the report.

    Type-1 diabetes, previously known as childhood-onset diabetes, is characterised by a lack of insulin production and requires daily insulin to regulate blood glucose, but the cause is not known.

    However, the majority of people are affected by type-2 diabetes, which results from the body’s ineffective use of insulin.

    Healthy diet, physical activity and avoiding tobacco use can prevent or delay its onset.

    Additionally, medication, regular screening and treatment for complications are also available.

    “An accurate diagnosis is the first step to getting effective treatment,” WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus said earlier in the year.

    In its report, WHO called on governments to “ensure that people are able to make healthy choices and that health systems are able to diagnose, treat and care for people with diabetes.

    The UN General Assembly designated Nov. 14 every year as World Diabetes Day back in 2007, recognising “the urgent need to pursue multilateral efforts to promote and improve human health, and provide access to treatment and health-care education”.

  • Visiting WHO team scored our laboratory zero – NAFDAC DG

    …Says 80 per cent of our equipment faulty

    The Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, has said that 80 per cent of the equipment belonging to the agency has not been working.

    Adeyeye made the statement on Monday in Lagos while receiving members of the Senate Committee on Health who were on a tour of federal health institutions in the state.

    She said, “80 per cent of our equipment is no longer working and that is a major challenge to deliver on our mandate. The last time, the World Health Organisation visited our laboratory in Yaba, they scored us zero.”

    The NAFDAC DG also complained that the agency was understaffed and awaiting the approval of the Head of Service of the Federation to recruit more personnel.

    On the debt profile of the agency, Adeyeye said she met a debt of N3.2bn when she assumed office, but she was able to reduce it to N400m.

    The Vice-Chairman of the committee, Senator Clifford Ordia, urged the NAFDAC boss to jettison the idea of procurring buses manufactured abroad and patronise locally made vehicles in order to help grow the economy.

    The Chairman Senate Committee on Health, Senator Lanre Tejuosho, commended Adeyeye for her efforts in revamping the agency.

    Tejuosho, however, told the DG to prioritise the needs of the agency and present them to the Ministry of Health so that it would reflect in the 2019 budget.

    The committee also visited on-going projects at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba, the Federal Medical Centre, Ebute Meta, Federal Neuro-Psychiatrist Hospital, Yaba and the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi.

    Speaking with journalists at the end of the exercise, Tejuosho said the general observation in all the places the team visited was the problem of funding and prompt release of fund to the hospitals.

    “Most of them have only received about 10 per cent of their 2018 capital budget, which makes it difficult for us to blame them for lack of performance. We cannot expect them to do a lot with only 10 per cent of the fund they need for the whole year.

    “We chose the institutions that we visited today because they are the institution our people need to reverse medical tourism. Like the National Orthopaedic Hospital in Igbobi, they must be given special attention. This is because once you have an orthopeadic case, it is very difficult to be flown abroad until you are stabilised,” Tejuosho said.

    He also promised that his committee would ensure the improvement of the budget appropriation for the hospitals, as well as appeal to the Federal Government to make enough funds available to the health sector.

  • WHO to commence week-long maternal treatment, child immunisation in Edo

    The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said that it will commence maternal treatment, newborn and child immunisation exercise in Edo.

    Mrs Kate Ogieugo, WHO State Representative made this known in Benin on Wednesday during a one-day stakeholders’ sensitisation meeting for the upcoming campaign.

    Ogieugo said the campaign scheduled to start on November 19 would be targeted at children and child bearing women of 15 to 49 years.

    She also said that Vitamin A would be given to children of six to 59 months to prevent child mortality.

    She said the programme was made possible due to the payment of counterparts fund for the programme by the Edo Government.

    “The interventions during the week will include immunisation of children from zero to 59 months, health education on exclusive breastfeeding for first six months.

    “Complementary feeding, prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV/AIDS, simple hand washing techniques using soap and water, personal hygiene, birth registration and family planning services.

    “Vitamin A supplementation to children from six months to five years, DE-worming , Ante-natal service including malaria prevention and treatment, administration of Tetanus Diphtheria Vaccine to pregnant women and Nutrition screening,” she said.
    According to her, the programme would be carried out at all health centres and designated centres across the state from 8.00am to 4pm daily.

    Ogieugo said “Vaccinators will not move from house to house. In a single visit, all health interventions will be provided for mother and child at health and designated centres.

    “It is a package of high impact, preventive and curative services. It is cost effective. Repeated Oral polio Vaccine (OPV) will boost the child immunity,’’ she added.

    According to her, all services rendered during the week-long programme will be free. She urged mothers and caregivers should take their children to the nearest health centres.

     

  • Polio: WHO urges parents to embrace immunisation

    Polio: WHO urges parents to embrace immunisation

    The World Health Organisation (WHO) has called on parents in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), to ensure that children are immunised against polio virus to secure their future.

    Dr Furera Zakari, the WHO state coordinator for FCT, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Saturday.

    According to her, the immunisation exercise scheduled to commence from Nov. 3 Nov. 6, is to ensure children are vaccinated for protection and eradication of the virus in the country.

    “Polio is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus that mainly affects children under five years of age.

    “I appeal to parents to present their children for immunisation and if the vaccine does not get to them, they should report to the nearest local government.

    “The polio vaccine today is accessible to the masses even in most of the remote locations due to the efforts of World Health Organisation.

    “The only thing is for the parent to be convinced that the vaccine is necessary to save their children future,” she said.

    The coordinator called on parents and traditional rulers in the area councils to ensure that children were vaccinated during the immunisation exercise.

    She said that the primary healthcare coordinators in the area councils were also committed to educating parents on the importance of polio immunisation in the rural communities.

    Zakari urged parents and caregivers in FCT to always see immunisation as the only way to completely eradicate polio virus in the country.

  • WHO pegs life expectancy in Nigeria at 55 years

    The 2018 average life expectancy for Nigerians is now 55 years, a global data shows.
     
    According to the latest World Health Organisation data published for 2018 life expectancy in Nigeria, a male given birth to in Nigeria in 2018 is expected to live approximately 54.7 years while a female is expected to live approximately 55.7 years in good health.
    The data shows Nigeria has a World life expectancy ranking of 178 out of 192 ranked countries.
     
    However, the average life expectancy at birth in Nigeria is 55.2 years, an improvement from the previous figure, 47.
     
    Meanwhile, the released statistical report by Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) for 2017 has it that females can live for approximately 51 years while males can live for just 47 years.
     
    The report shows that residents in Nigeria are liable to die of sicknesses and diseases, as well as other causes.
     
    Causes of death listed in the report are influenza, pneumonia, tuberculosis, diarrhoeal diseases, stroke, HIV/AIDS, coronary heart disease, liver disease, prostate cancer, diabetes mellitus, maternal conditions, malaria, breast cancer, meningitis, cervical cancer, lung disease and low birth weight.
     
    Other causes include accident, road traffic and birth trauma among others.
     
    A study published last week had said life expectancy in Nigeria can increase to 74.8 years by 2040.
     
    The study, “Forecasting life expectancy, years of life lost, and all-cause and cause-specific mortality for 250 causes of death: reference and alternative scenarios for 2016–40 for 195 countries and territories using data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016,” was carried out by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).
     
    IHME is an independent global health research organisation at the University of Washington that provides rigorous and comparable measurement of the world’s most important health problems and evaluates the strategies used to address them.

  • Ebola cases in DR Congo will rise in coming days – WHO

    Ebola cases in DR Congo will rise in coming days – WHO

    The World Health Organisation (WHO) has raised the alarm that cases from the resurgent Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are expected to rise in the coming days.

    WHO’s Deputy Director General of Emergency Preparedness and Response, Dr Peter Salama, said in Geneva that there had been around 20 deaths as a result of the Ebola virus.

    Salama also said protecting vulnerable people in eastern DRC from the latest Ebola Virus outbreak was going to be “very, very complex”, given the huge logistical challenges and ongoing conflict there.

    The WHO emergency preparedness and response chief said: “We know for example that there have been around 20 deaths. We can’t at this stage confirm whether they are all confirmed or probable Ebola cases.

    “We expect however that the overall case count will rise in coming days to weeks, based on the trajectory of epidemics at this stage in their development.”

    Salama said that WHO was unaware of the public health emergency in North Kivu province when the UN agency a week ago declared the last Ebola episode over.

    The outbreak on the western side of the country in June, infected dozens, and led to 33 deaths, but in spite of several cases appearing in a major city on the Congo River, it was fully contained after a massive international and national response.

    The top WHO official said that there was “no evidence” to suggest a link between the two outbreaks, although it appeared “very likely” that they shared the same deadly Zaire strain.

    “The death toll from the current Kivu episode is likely to rise,” the WHO official said, adding that the alert was raised on July 25 after a woman and many members of her immediate family died after exhibiting symptoms consistent with Ebola.

    “That event appears to have been a woman who was admitted to hospital around Beni, and on discharge had recovered from the original complaint.

    “After leaving however, she came down with a fever and other symptoms that were clinically consistent with Ebola, and later on, seven of her direct relatives also contracted the disease,” he added.

    Salama explained how longstanding conflict in Eastern DRC – involving more than 100 armed groups in the Kivu area and elsewhere – created an additional level of difficulty in trying to contain the deadly disease.

    In the first week of February 2018 alone around Beni, attacks displaced more than 2,200, in addition to 1,500 displaced at the end of January.

    In the Djugu Territory to the south of North Kivu, inter-ethnic violence led nearly 30,000 to flee their homes to the provincial capital Bunia, at the beginning of 2018.

    “It’s going to be a very, very complex operation,” he said, noting that the vast country is home to the UN’s largest peacekeeping operation, the UN Stabilisation Mission in the DRC.

    One million of the province’s eight million inhabitants are displaced and getting access to some of those in danger of coming into contact with Ebola, will require an armed escort in some cases, the WHO official explained.

    There is also the additional threat that those fleeing violence may also head into nearby Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi, taking the infection with them, Salama said, noting that additional surveillance measures are being implemented at crossing points.

    “On the scale of difficulty, trying to extinguish a deadly outbreak pathogen in a war zone is at the top of the scale,” he added.

    In the most recent Ebola outbreak, a key part of the emergency response involved tracing anyone who had come into contact with suspected carriers of the disease, he said.

    WHO staff could travel hundreds of miles on a motorbike to do this vital work, but this is likely to be much more difficult in view of the high level of insecurity in the Kivus.

    One immediate priority is to confirm whether the latest outbreak involves the Zaire strain, since this can be treated with the same vaccine that was employed in Equateur province.

    “It’s good news and it’s very bad news. The bad news is that this strain of Ebola carries with it the highest case-fatality-rate of any of the strains of Ebola, anywhere above 50 per cent and higher, according to previous outbreaks.

    “So, it’s the most-deadly variant of the Ebola virus strains that we have, that’s the bad news. The good news is that we do have – although it’s still an investigational product – a safe and effective vaccine, that we were able to deploy last time around,” Salama said.

    NAN

     

  • Cholera Outbreak: WHO deploys 39 staff to Adamawa

    The World Health Organization (WHO) has deployed 39 staff to contain the outbreak of cholera in Mubi North and Mubi South South Local Government Areas of Adamawa.

    A statement from Chima Onuekwe, the Health Emergencies Communication Officer of WHO, made available to newsmen in Yola on Tuesday, said there were plans to engage additional 15 ad-hoc personnel to boost the medical efforts.

    The statement which noted that 434 suspected cases had been recorded with 13 deaths as at May 26, described the development as worrisome.

    It said that WHO was coordinating the response activities, including active surveillance within communities and health facilities, management of reported cases as well as daily review meeting at the Emergency Operations Centre, to ensure timely control of the outbreak.

    Meanwhile, the Adamawa Commissioner for Health, Dr Fatima Atiku, said that the state was collaborating with WHO and other partners to ensure that the outbreak was contained.

    Atiku said that the efforts were yielding results as indicated in the decline in the trend of case fatality ratio, which was 17 per cent as at May 12, but reduced to 3 per cent.

    NAN

  • WHO raises Ebola risk to ‘very high’

    WHO raises Ebola risk to ‘very high’

    The Ebola outbreak in Congo poses a greater danger to the Central African country and the region than previously assumed, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).

    The recent confirmation of a case in Mbandaka, a large city that straddles national and international transport routes, had increased the risk of the virus spreading further, the UN health agency said on Friday in Geneva.

    “WHO has, therefore, revised the assessment of public health risk to very high at the national level and high at the regional level,’’ it said in a statement.

    The global significance of this outbreak that has killed 14 people, so far is being discussed at a WHO emergency meeting and will be announced later on Friday.

    The WHO has previously said that the chance of a global outbreak is low.

    In Congo, the Health Ministry announced that the number of confirmed Ebola cases in the country have risen from three to 14.

    “In total since the start of the epidemic, there have been 45 cases of haemorrhagic fever, including 10 suspected cases, 21 probable cases and 14 confirmed cases,’’ the ministry said late Thursday.

    While one person was confirmed dead from the virus, 25 people are suspected to have died from it, the ministry said.

    One of the most contagious viral diseases known, Ebola’s symptoms are extraordinarily painful and include severe vomiting, diarrhoea, fever, impaired kidney and liver function as well as internal and external bleeding.

    The UN and aid organisations are racing to prevent the recurrence of an outbreak like in 2014, when 11,000 people died in the West African epidemic that was centred in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

    The executive of the EU on Friday announced the release of 1.6 million euros (1.9 million dollars) to help tackle the outbreak, with most of the money going to the WHO to provide logistics support.