COVID-19 has caused changes to people’s wellbeing around the world ever since the World Health Organization declared the viral outbreak a global pandemic on March 11, 2020. As the virus surged and receded and surged again in country after country throughout 2020, prompting lockdowns, school and business closures, people around the world have reported changes in their physical activity levels, mental health, wellbeing, and eating habits.
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The 2021 World Economic Forum wrapped today in Davos after five days of discussions focused on the coronavirus pandemic, affordable medical care, net-zero emissions, digital technology and the future of work. Amid the big panels on vaccines, climate and finance, a small project from India shows how compassion has opened an innovative way to handle the tons of plastic waste the virus has left across the world.
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“If ever we needed reminding that we live in an interconnected world, the novel coronavirus has brought that home,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi as the UN Refugee Agency and the World Health Organization today signed a new agreement to strengthen public health services for the millions forcibly displaced from their communities.
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Wracked by civil war for nine years, Syria is at “high risk” of being unable to contain the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, the UN Special Envoy for the country said Monday. In a video conference with UN Security Council members, Geir Pedersen called for a “complete, immediate nationwide ceasefire” to enable an all-out-effort to counter the virus.
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It began just 11 weeks ago. A pneumonia of unknown cause detected in the city of Wuhan, capital of China’s Hubei province, was first reported to the country office of the World Health Organization (WHO) in China on December 31, 2019. Just 11 weeks later, on March 11, WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the disease now known as the novel coronavirus COVID-19 “a pandemic.”
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Roughly half of all households in 15 large cities in the global south lack access to piped utility water, affecting more than 50 million people, finds a report by University of Manchester researchers. Access is lowest in the cities of sub-Saharan Africa, where only 22 percent of households receive piped water.
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A guided self-help approach that offers strategies for managing distress and coping with adversity is safe, and resulted in meaningful improvements in functioning compared to enhanced usual care in female refugees living in a settlement in Uganda, according to a randomized trial involving nearly 700 South Sudanese refugee women…
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Efforts to shift away from fossil fuels and replace oil and coal with renewable energy sources can help reduce carbon emissions but they do so at the expense of increased inequality, according to a new study from Portland State University.
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Migrants and refugees are likely to have good general health, but they can be at risk of falling sick in transition or while staying in receiving countries due to poor living conditions or drastic changes in their lifestyles.
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“We need to dramatically increase our ambitions. We are witnessing the severe impacts of climate change throughout the world,” said Executive Secretary of UN Climate Change Patricia Espinosa of Brazil, at a news conference in Bonn.
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Cooking with charcoal indoors emits smoke that is fatal to millions of people every year, according to new data released Wednesday by the World Health Organization. WHO says, in total, household and outdoor air pollution result in “an alarming death toll” of eight million people a year.
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Three million deaths a year are linked to exposure to outdoor air pollution, and indoor air pollution can be just as deadly. Today, the World Health Organization issued an air quality model confirming that 92 percent of the world’s people live in places where air pollution levels exceed WHO limits.
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The poorest cities on Earth have the worst air pollution, data revealed today by the World Health Organization shows. More than 80 percent of the people living in cities that monitor pollutants in their air are exposed to levels up to 10 times higher than WHO limits.
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The head of the World Health Organization Monday declared the spread of the Zika virus to 24 countries in the Americas “a public health emergency of international concern.” Zika is a mosquito-borne virus that is new to the Americas.
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