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Tag: WHO

  • Ebola: Sierra Leone to vaccinate 200

    Ebola: Sierra Leone to vaccinate 200

    Sierra Leone is to vaccinate around 200 people who came into direct or indirect contact with a woman who died of Ebola on Saturday, a spokeswoman for the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday.

    The death of the woman, a trader from Kambia District near the border with Guinea, sets back efforts to end an 18-month epidemic that has infected more than 28,000 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia and killed more than a third of them, Reuters reported.

    The 67-year-old woman died five days after Sierra Leone started a 42-day countdown to being declared free of Ebola. The previous new case of the disease was reported on August 8.

    “We will vaccinate those in the (Tonko Limba) chiefdom who came into direct contact with the deceased and those contacts they also came into close contact with,” said WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris.

    “We have to ensure that everybody is fully informed and consents,” she said, adding that voluntary vaccinations with a drug that arrived from Guinea and has proved effective there would start on Thursday or Friday.

    The fresh case is discouraging and a reminder of the difficulty of battling Ebola, said Pallo Conteh, head of the National Ebola Response Centre in Sierra Leone, adding that more cases may be recorded as a result of this victim.

    He appealed to a woman he named as the niece of the victim to come forward, saying she was at high risk.

    The outbreak has ebbed only to flare back up since it was first declared in March 2014. Liberia was declared Ebola-free in May, but a fresh cluster of cases appeared nearly two months later. Liberia’s last case was discharged on July 23.

  • Ebola survivors face severe pain, possible blindness

    Ebola survivors face severe pain, possible blindness

    Thousands of West Africans who were infected with the Ebola virus but survived it are suffering chronic conditions such as serious joint pain and eye inflammation that can lead to blindness, global health experts have said.

    Ebola survivors who fought off the most severe bouts of infection are the most likely to suffer ongoing medical problems, World Health Organization experts said, and their health is becoming “an emergency within an emergency.”

    “The world has never seen such a large number of survivors from an Ebola outbreak,” said Anders Nordstrom, a WHO representative in Sierra Leone who took part in a five-day conference this week about Ebola survivors.

    “We have 13,000 survivors in the three countries (Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone). This is new – both from a medical and from a societal point of view,” Reuters quoted Nordstrom as saying to reporters on a telebriefing.

    Daniel Bausch of the WHO’s clinical care team on Ebola survivors said about half of all those who fought off the virus now report joint pain, with some suffering such severe effects that they can’t work.

    Eye problems including inflammation, impaired vision and – in severe but rare cases – blindness, have been reported by about 25 percent of survivors, Bausch said.

    Less measurable but equally serious long-term problems, such as increasing rates of depression, post traumatic stress disorder and social exclusion, are also affecting survivors.

    Since West Africa’s devastating Ebola epidemic was by far the largest ever seen – infecting more than 27,000 people and killing almost 11,300 of them – scientists are not able to say whether survivors’ chronic health problems are unusual.

     

  • ‘Ebola vaccine results remarkable’

    ‘Ebola vaccine results remarkable’

    A vaccine against the deadly Ebola virus has led to 100 per cent protection and could transform the way Ebola is tackled, preliminary results suggest.

    There were no proven drugs or vaccines against the virus at the start of the largest outbreak of Ebola in history, which began in Guinea in December 2013, the BBC reports.

    The World Health Organization (WHO) said the findings, being published in the Lancet, could be a “game-changer.”

    The trial centred on the VSV-EBOV vaccine, was started by the Public Health Agency of Canada and then developed by a pharmaceutical company – Merck.

    It combined a fragment of the Ebola virus with another safer virus in order to train the immune system to beat Ebola.

    A unique clinical trial took place in Guinea. When patients were discovered, their friends, neighbours and relatives were vaccinated to create a “protective ring” of immunity.

  • Nigeria marks polio-free year

    Nigeria marked its first year without a single case of polio on Friday, reaching a milestone many experts had thought would elude it as internal conflict hampered the battle against the crippling disease.

    It means the country could come off the list of countries where polio is endemic in a few weeks, once the World Health Organization (WHO) can confirm that the last few samples taken from people in previously affected areas are free of the virus, Reuters says.

    This achievement turns up the pressure on Pakistan, where most of the few polio cases in the world remain, to follow suit.

    Nigeria’s polio-free period, dating from July 24, 2014, is the longest it has gone without recording a case.

    The hope is that next month the entire African continent will have gone a full year without a polio infection, with the last case recorded in Somalia on August 11, 2014.

    All this brings tantalisingly closer the prospect that polio will soon become only the second human infectious disease after smallpox to be eradicated.

    “It’s an extraordinary achievement. It really shows the value of government leadership and taking ownership of the programme,” said Carol Pandak, the director of Rotary International’s polio program.

     

  • WHO, UNICEF: Nigeria’s sanitation situation worsens

    WHO, UNICEF: Nigeria’s sanitation situation worsens

    Nigeria has recorded no progress in the area of sanitation in the last 25 years, a World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) 2015 has said.

     The 2015 report is aimed at monitoring the progress of countries towards achieving access to safe water and basic sanitation.

     It said in 1990, 38 per cent of the population had access to improved sanitation.

     In 2015, the figure is now 29 per cent, which is up just by 1 per cent from 2014’s figure of 28 per cent.

     “The proportion of Nigeria’s population that has gained access to improved sanitation since 1990 is only 9 per cent,” the report said.

    It said in 1990, 24 per cent of the population was practicing open defecation. That figure  is now 25 per cent.

     It added that in 2014, it was 23 per cent which means that Nigeria is not only worse off now than it was 25 years ago but in the past year alone, the country has regressed by 2 per cent in this regard.

     According to the report, the Federal Government has not met the national target it set to ensure that 75 per cent of its population has access to safe water by this year.

     “Nigeria has generally done better in the area of water provision and has met the MDG target for water which was to halve the number of people without access to safe water.”

     “The goal on sanitation, however, has failed dramatically. At present rates of progress it would take 300 years for everyone in Sub-Saharan Africa to get access to a sanitary toilet,” it stated.

     Reacting to the new report, the Country Representative of WaterAid Nigeria, an international agency, Dr. Michael Ojo, said that It is true that a lot has changed in the 25 years since the WHO /UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme began to document the world’s access to drinking water and sanitation.

     The picture for Nigeria, he said, has for the most part remained quite grim.

     Dr. Ojo said: “Communities without safe water and basic toilets have higher rates of illness and are held back from economic progress. Children spend long hours fetching water instead of at school desks, parents are less able to spend time earning incomes and hospitals fill with people suffering from preventable water-borne illnesses. The burden is disproportionally felt by women and girls, who are most often tasked with fetching water and who are most at risk of harassment and worse if they are without a safe, private place to relieve themselves.”

  • ‘WHO unfit for health emergencies’

    ‘WHO unfit for health emergencies’

    The World Health Organization (WHO) lacks the “capacity and culture” to deal with global health emergencies, the head of a new independent report on Ebola, has said.

    Dame Barbara Stocking said WHO failed in its handling of the deadly disease outbreak, which has killed more than 11,000 people, mostly in West Africa.

    But the ex-head of Oxfam added that WHO is not solely to blame.

    The whole humanitarian system lacked foresight, she said.

    The full report, commissioned by WHO, will be published later on Tuesday, the BBC says.

    The WHO has set out plans for reform, admitting that it was too slow to respond to the deadly Ebola outbreak that began in 2013.

    In August 2014, the WHO declared it a public health emergency of international concern. By that point, more than 1,000 people had died of the virus.

  • ‘WHO unfit for health emergencies’

    ‘WHO unfit for health emergencies’

    The World Health Organization (WHO) lacks the “capacity and culture” to deal with global health emergencies, the head of a new independent report on Ebola, has said.

    Dame Barbara Stocking said WHO failed in its handling of the deadly disease outbreak, which has killed more than 11,000 people, mostly in West Africa.

    But the ex-head of Oxfam added that WHO is not solely to blame.

    The whole humanitarian system lacked foresight, she said.

    The full report, commissioned by WHO, will be published later on Tuesday, the BBC says.

    The WHO has set out plans for reform, admitting that it was too slow to respond to the deadly Ebola outbreak that began in 2013.

    In August 2014, the WHO declared it a public health emergency of international concern. By that point, more than 1,000 people had died of the virus.

  • WHO raises alarm over childhood obesity

    WHO raises alarm over childhood obesity

    The World Health Organisation (WHO) has blamed childhood obesity, especially in developing countries, on the marketing of sugar-rich non-alcoholic beverages and ultra-processed, energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods.

    “Childhood obesity can erode the benefits that arrive with social and economic progress,” WHO Director-General Margaret Chan told the Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity, which is meeting in Hong Kong.

    “Childhood obesity must be accepted as a significant and urgent threat to health that is relevant in all countries. Governments must take the lead,” she said Tuesday.

    Chan praised the interim report on the work carried out thus far by the Commission and commended the group’s warning that `voluntary initiatives are not likely to be sufficient’.

    “To be successful, efforts aimed at reducing the marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages need support from regulatory and statutory approaches.

    “Perhaps most importantly, you defined a moral responsibility and stated where it must lie. None of the factors that cause obesity are under the control of the child,” she said.

    According to WHO, the number of overweight or obese infants and young children increased from 32 million globally in 1990 to 42 million in 2013.
    In Africa alone, the number of overweight or obese children increased from 4 to 9 million over the same period.

    The WHO fact sheet on childhood obesity also said the vast majority of overweight or obese children live in developing countries.

    It said if the current trends continue the number of overweight or obese infants and young children globally will increase to 70 million by 2025.

    WHO governing body, the World Health Assembly, in 2014 approved the Global Action Plan for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases 2013-2020.

    It aims to achieve the commitments of the UN Political Declaration on non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

    The action plan is expected to contribute to progress on nine global NCD targets to be attained by 2025. These targets include halting global obesity rates in school-aged children, adolescents and adults.

  • ICAO, WHO to assess MMIA for emergency preparedness

    The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO) will today carry out an “assistance visit” to the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos.

    The team will be evaluating the level of emergency medical preparedness by the agencies operating at the airport.

    The visit, according to the General Manager, Public Affairs of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Mr. Fan Ndubuoke, is part of global efforts by the two United Nations (UN) bodies to assess and improve the airport’s preparedness, planning and response to public health issues.

    The visit is part of WHO’s determination to offer training sessions to airports in Africa as contained in the International Health Regulations (2005).

    The Director-General of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) Capt. Muhtar Usman has called on all stakeholders to cooperate with the ICAO CAPSCA Assistance visit team during the exercise.

  • WHO urges Nigeria to ratify law against tobacco

    WHO urges Nigeria to ratify law against tobacco

    The World Health Organisation (WHO) has advised the Federal Government to expedite action in ratifying the United Nations Protocol to eliminate the illicit trade in tobacco products.

    The Coordinator of WHO in Lagos, Dr Sunday Abidoye, made the call in Lagos at an event organised by the UN Information Centre (UNIC), the Nigeria Heart Foundation and the UN Association of Nigeria.

    The event, organised to commemorate the World No Tobacco Day, had as its theme: “Stop Illicit Trade of Tobacco Products”.

    Abidoye said it was not enough for Nigeria to only sign the protocol.

    “Recognising the enormity of illicit trade in tobacco products, the international community came together with a protocol to eliminate illicit trade in tobacco products.

    “To date, only 14 countries in the African region have signed the protocol and just two have ratified it. We, therefore, urge the Nigerian government to urgently join other African countries that have ratified the protocol in their countries,’’ he said.

    The WHO official said Nigeria’s domestication of the protocol would protect her from financial, legal, social and health consequences associated with the illicit trade.

    The UN Secretary-General, Mr Ban Ki-Moon, in a message presented on his behalf by UNIC Administrative Assistant, Ms Adeola Adedeji, said the trade was luring younger and poorer groups into addiction.

    Ban said the illicit trade had continued to deplete the ability of states to charge taxes that would have supported health services.

    Director of Tobacco in the Nigerian Heart Foundation,Mr. Dapo Rotifa, said advantage should be taken with the former President Goodluck Jonathan’s signing into law of the Anti-Tobacco Bill.

    According to him, the global tobacco epidemic kills about six million people yearly out of which 600,000 are non-smokers.

    A lawyer and Coordinator of the Coalition Against Tobacco, Mrs Olatoyosi Onaolapo, urged the government to increase taxation on tobacco products to discourage children from smoking.

    She called for the implementation of the ban on tobacco advertisement across the country and the government’s commitment to the enforcement of the anti-tobacco law.

    The event was attended by 40 pupils from three secondary schools in Lagos State.

    The World No Tobacco Day is observed on May 31  yearly to encourage abstinence from tobacco use and to create awareness on the negative health effects of tobacco products.