Day: September 30, 2022

Yola, 30 September, 2022 – In line with the target of improving the health of billions of people by 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) is supporting three states in northeast Nigeria – Borno, Adamawa and Yobe – (BAY states), to strengthen their health workforce to respond to the humanitarian crisis affecting the region through the provision of critical healthcare services including health risk messaging, and immunization.

In the BAY states, about 8.4 million people need humanitarian aid in 2022, women and children are the most vulnerable, exposed to gender-based violence and preventable disease outbreak.

In addition, thousands of people living in hard-to-reach areas do not have access to the urgently needed essential health services in the state.

So far in 2022 (January to June), WHO piloted various strategies to ensure millions of lives are saved by the provision of urgently needed health services, targeting the most vulnerable persons prone to disease outbreaks and those living in hard-to-reach locations with no access to health facilities.

Working with partners, WHO continues to deliver assistance, including delivery of healthcare services, and capacity building of over 1,400 healthcare workers and 300 health sector partners to provide quality health services and risk messages to the people.

The WHO’s assistance in the BAY states focuses on strengthening disease surveillance systems, providing nutrition, protection for those facing gender-based violence, immunization services, and health care and have reached more than one million people across the region.

Other services provided are outbreak response, specialized mental health care/psychosocial support, response to emergency health services through the mobile-health teams in the hard-to-reach areas, seasonal malaria chemoprevention campaign, support to victims of gender-based violence, and capacity building for health personnel in member states.

Across the three states, WHO supported mobile health teams reached 399,148 children with live-saving vaccines against childhood killer diseases such as measles, polio and others, 109,658 dewormed, and 437,368 clients treated for minor illnesses.

Furthermore, 197,092 children were screened for malnutrition and 9,944 with Severe Acute malnutrition were referred to functional health facilities for further management, and 43,174 pregnant women received ANC services to prevent anaemia in pregnancy, with 31,937 pregnant women given iron folate/iron acid.

Commending the humanitarian support, Adamawa state commissioner of health and human services, Professor Abdullahi Isa, said WHO has been a reliable partner in the struggle to provide universal health coverage to the people in the northeast.

He said that WHO is committed to ensuring that no one is left behind in access to quality health services, especially the vulnerable, as it is crucial to saving millions of lives.

“The organization has been a trusted partner in interventions such as seasonal malaria chemoprevention, strengthening of the surveillance system, and capacity building for healthcare workers in the covid-19 response.

Support provided include facilitating the mobile health teams to reach the under-serve individuals living in hard-to-reach locations in the state with urgently needed health services”, said Professor Isa.

Buttressing the importance of interventions, the WHO northeast Emergency Manager, Dr Richard Lako, said WHO remains committed to leading and championing global efforts to give everyone, everywhere an equal chance to live a healthy life.

He said irrespective of the humanitarian crisis, people in the region deserve an equal chance to live healthy life.

“There is need to continue with the health response to mitigate the effect of the crisis in the region, to reduce mortality and morbidity rates by providing life-saving essential health services,” he said.

The interventions were possible thanks to support from the government of Germany, the United States Agency for International Development, the Nigerian Humanitarian Funds, Bill and Melinda Gates, Contingency Fund for Emergencies, European Union, European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, and the government of Canada.

 

Source: World Health Organization. Africa

 

Yola, 30 September, 2022 – Sitting on a wooden stool in front of her house at Dobeli community in Yola North Local Government Area (LGA), Hajara Yusuf, a (27 years old mother of three) was coaxing her sons to take the seasonal malaria chemoprevention (SMC) drugs.

“I usually look forward to when they administer the periodic malaria drugs because I have seen first-hand how it prevents children from falling ill. Previously, I used to refuse the drugs because I was not sure what it was until a community health educator explained the benefit.

Afterwards, I tried it with my second child (Tsoho) because he was always falling ill and since then, he has been healthy. Two of my children are among the eligible group entitled to receive the drugs and I have since taken it upon myself to look out for every time there is a campaign to guarantee my children receive their dose.  I also encourage other mothers to collect for their children. Since Tsoho and his sibling began receiving the SMC drugs, I have spent less money on drugs, and this has given me ample time for other things”  she said.

Mrs Yusuf said she is usually sad when she sees her son not playing around with other children.

“But right now, I am happy that he plays and runs around just like other children. And I remain committed to ensuring they are available to receive their drugs across all four cycles and will also be a champion of such benefits to other mothers, said Mrs Yusuf.

The young mother of three is one of the beneficiaries of the SMC drugs distributed in Adamawa State to almost one million children across the 21 LGAs, with the support of the World Health Organization (WHO) and funding from Global Funds through the National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP).

SMC is administered monthly for four months during the highest malaria transmission periods, using Sulfadoxine-Pyrimethamine (SP) and Amodiaquine (AQ) (SPAQ) to children aged 3 – 59 months to reduce the cases of malaria outbreaks which are usually on the increase in the country during the rainy season.

A persistent threat
In Nigeria, malaria caused by bite of infected female Anopheles mosquito is one of the leading public health problems and poses a threat to the entire population, with children and pregnant women being most vulnerable to severe disease and death.
Ending malaria transmission by 2030 remains a top government priority as Nigeria is one of the four countries accounting for just over half of all malaria deaths worldwide.

According to the latest World malaria report, Nigeria accounts for 27% of all malaria cases and 32% of deaths globally.

To reduce the burden of the disease, the WHO recommends, among other interventions, the SMC intervention for children aged 3-59 months living in areas of high malaria transmission to protect against malaria during the rainy season.

Other WHO recommended interventions aimed at controlling malaria include vector control through use of long lasting insecticidal nets, Indoor residual spraying. all suspected cases of malaria be confirmed using parasite-based diagnostic testing (through either microscopy or a rapid diagnostic test). Diagnostic testing enables health providers to swiftly distinguish between malarial and non-malarial fevers, facilitating appropriate treatment.

Continuous intervention 

Applauding the WHO for continuously supporting the state government to provide quality health services for the populace, the Adamawa state Director for Public Health, Dr Celine Laori, said the September malaria prevention campaign is the fourth and last cycle of the SMC routine for the year.

“We appreciate WHO’s outstanding leadership and commitment throughout the four cycles. They supported the state in building the capacity of health workers, which propelled them to provide adequate services throughout the exercise,” said Dr Laori.

Upholding the importance of the campaign, the northeast Emergency Manager, Dr Richard Lako, said WHO has remained a dedicated partner in supporting Adamawa state in achieving the global targets of reducing malaria case incidence and mortality rate by at least 90% by 2030.

“The SMC campaign will complement the efforts of the Adamawa state government to provide quality health services for the people. The WHO will continue to provide technical support, including capacity building, to increase early disease detection in the state, especially in the hard-to-reach locations,” said Dr Lako.

 

 

Source: World Health Organization. Africa

Ambatondrazaka, Madagascar – “The vaccine at all costs to survive the COVID-19 pandemic.” This is the credo of Justine Rasoanindrina, a grandmother of eight Ambatondrazaka district, more than 270 km from Madagascar’s capital, Antananarivo.

At 78, Justine continues to practice both as a masseuse and a matron. Well-known in her community, she embraced the profession of masseuse at the age of 15 and that of matron at 22 years old. Because of her devotion to the work of giving and saving life, Justine is part of the steering committee of the Association of Traditional Medicine practitioners in Ambatondrazaka.

But a little over a year ago, Justine added a new string to her bow: she became a community mobilizer in June 2021, following the death of her brother from COVID-19.

“His passing affected me to the extent that I made a commitment to fight against this pandemic alongside modern medicine,” says Justine. “I pledged to be among the messengers of this good news [of vaccination] in my community, and to encourage people to get vaccinated.”

In the beginning, she would raise awareness in a personalized manner.

“Each time I saw someone I always created a context to discuss and provide advice to persuade them to be vaccinated. I used the death of my brother, and my own vaccination, as testimony,” she says.

These days, Justine no longer waits for people to come to her. Instead, she goes “door-to-door” to raise awareness in her community. For her, there are prerequisites for vaccination.

“We must first educate the community about the real existence of the disease and the vaccine’s effectiveness before hoping that people will get vaccinated en masse,” she suggests. “It’s both an honour for me and a duty to others.”

“Madame Justine is like a mother to me. She has assisted me from the pregnancy of my first child, who is now 16, to today as I’m carrying my fifth,” says Ravaonirina, one of the people Justine reached out to about the COVID-19 vaccination. “She managed to convince me of the effectiveness of the vaccine, so I got vaccinated.

“Now, I’m carrying a pregnancy – contrary to the rumours that claim the vaccine makes you sterile,” she adds.

False rumours such as these, claiming that the vaccine causes sterility or makes you weak and thus vulnerable to other diseases, persist despite the work of community mobilizers like Justine. To refute them, she organizes discussion and experience-sharing sessions featuring health workers and vaccinated people to testify about their vaccination and post-vaccination experiences, highlighting in each case that the rumours are unfounded.

Since her involvement as a community mobilizer, Justine says she has convinced more than 250 people to get vaccinated. “Patience and diplomacy smooth the way,” she says.

In Madagascar, vaccination against COVID-19 began in May 2021. By the beginning of September 2022, 1.4 million people had received their first dose of vaccine, or 5.4% of the total population against a target of 51% by 2023.

Ambatondrazaka district is outperforming the national average, with a vaccination coverage rate of nearly 14%, a percentage attributable in part to efforts of community workers like Justine.

“Justine is a great support for our community. She uses her influence to help us reach the target population to be vaccinated. We owe our progress so far to her and to the other community workers,” declares Dr Sylvie Rabearizoa, a health inspector in Ambatondrazaka. “She is an influencer to be encouraged. Despite her age and people’s reluctance, she doesn’t hesitate to go door to door.”

Source: World Health Organization. Africa

 

Cholera is surging around the globe, the World Health Organization warns.

Flareups of the deadly disease have been reported in 26 countries in the first nine months of this year. In comparison, fewer than 20 countries reported cholera outbreaks per year between 2017 and 2021. In addition to greater frequency, the WHO reports the outbreaks themselves are larger and more deadly.

While poverty and conflict are major triggers of cholera, climate change is a growing threat.

Philippe Barboza, WHO team lead for Cholera and Epidemic Diarrheal Diseases, said climate change presents an additional layer of complexity and creates the conditions for cholera outbreaks to explode.

“This is what we have seen in southern Africa with the succession of cyclones that affected the eastern part of the African Coast,” Barboza said. “The drought in East Africa is driving population movements, reducing access to water, which is already needed. So, of course, it is a key factor, which is fueling the outbreak. And the same in Sahel and other places.”

Fifteen of the 26 cholera-infected countries are in Africa, according to the WHO.

Barboza said massive climate-induced floods in Southeast Asia also have resulted in large outbreaks of cholera in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Many countries that have made significant progress in controlling cholera are now back to square one, he added.

Cholera is an acute diarrheal disease caused by contaminated food or water. It can kill within hours if left untreated. Cholera outbreaks can be prevented by ensuring access to clean water, basic sanitation, and hygiene, as well as stepping up surveillance and access to health care, Barboza said.

“This is what we need countries to do, but that is easier said than done. Although many of the cholera-affected countries are actively engaged in these efforts, they are facing multiple crises, including conflict and poverty, and this is why international action is so important,” he said.

Cholera is a preventable and treatable disease, Barboza said, so with the right foresight and action, the current global crisis can be reversed.

 

Source: Voice of America

 

This year’s Nobel Prize season approaches as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shattered decades of almost uninterrupted peace in Europe and raised the risks of a nuclear disaster.

The secretive Nobel committees never hint who will win the prizes in medicine, physics, chemistry, literature, economics or peace. It’s anyone’s guess who might win the awards being announced starting Monday.

Yet there’s no lack of urgent causes deserving the attention that comes with winning the world’s most prestigious prize: wars in Ukraine and Ethiopia, disruptions to supplies of energy and food, rising inequality, the climate crisis, the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The science prizes reward complex achievements beyond the understanding of most. But the recipients of the prizes in peace and literature are often known by a global audience, and the choices — or perceived omissions — have sometimes stirred emotional reactions.

Members of the European Parliament have called for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the people of Ukraine to be recognized this year by the Nobel Peace Prize committee for their resistance to the Russian invasion.

While that desire is understandable, that choice is unlikely because the Nobel committee has a history of honoring figures who end conflicts, not wartime leaders, said Dan Smith, director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Smith believes more likely peace prize candidates would be those fighting climate change or the International Atomic Energy Agency, a past recipient. Honoring the IAEA again would recognize its efforts to prevent a radioactive catastrophe at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant amid fighting in Ukraine, and its work in fighting nuclear proliferation, Smith said.

“This is a really difficult period in world history, and there is not a lot of peace being made,” he said.

Promoting peace isn’t always rewarded with a Nobel. India’s Mohandas Gandhi, a prominent symbol of nonviolence, was never so honored.

In some cases, the winners have not lived out the values enshrined in the peace prize.

Just this week the Vatican acknowledged imposing disciplinary sanctions on Nobel Peace Prize-winning Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo following allegations he sexually abused boys in East Timor in the 1990s.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won in 2019 for making peace with neighboring Eritrea. A year later, a largely ethnic conflict erupted in the country’s Tigray region. Some accuse Abiy of stoking the tensions, which have resulted in widespread atrocities. Critics have called for his Nobel to be revoked, and the Nobel committee has issued a rare admonition to him.

The Myanmar activist Aung San Suu Kyi won in 1991 for her opposition to military rule but decades later has been viewed as failing to oppose atrocities committed against the mostly Muslim Rohingya minority.

In some years, no peace prize has been awarded. The Norwegian Nobel Committee paused them during World War I, except to honor the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1917. It didn’t hand out any from 1939 to 1943 because of World War II. In 1948, the year Gandhi died, the committee made no award, citing a lack of a suitable living candidate.

The peace prize also does not always confer protection.

Last year journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia were awarded “for their courageous fight for freedom of expression” in the face of authoritarian governments.

Following the invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has cracked down even harder on independent media, including Muratov’s Novaya Gazeta, Russia’s most renowned independent newspaper. Muratov himself was attacked on a Russian train by an assailant who poured red paint over him, injuring his eyes.

The Philippines government this year ordered the shutdown of Ressa’s news organization, Rappler.

The literature prize, meanwhile, has been anything but predictable.

Few had bet on last year’s winner, Zanzibar-born, U.K.-based writer Abdulrazak Gurnah, whose books explore the personal and societal impacts of colonialism and migration.

Gurnah was only the sixth Nobel literature laureate born in Africa, and the prize has long faced criticism that it is too focused on European and North American writers. It is also male dominated, with just 16 women among its 118 laureates.

A clear contender is Salman Rushdie, the India-born writer and free-speech advocate who spent years in hiding after Iran’s clerical rulers called for his death over his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses. Rushdie, 75, was stabbed and seriously injured in August at a festival in New York state.

The list of possible winners includes literary giants from around the world: Kenyan writer Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, Japan’s Haruki Murakami, Norway’s Jon Fosse, Antigua-born Jamaica Kincaid and France’s Annie Ernaux.

The prizes to Gurnah in 2021 and U.S. poet Louise Gluck in 2020 have helped the literature prize move on from years of controversy and scandal.

In 2018, the award was postponed after sex abuse allegations rocked the Swedish Academy, which names the Nobel literature committee, and sparked an exodus of members. The academy revamped itself but faced more criticism for giving the 2019 literature award to Austria’s Peter Handke, who has been called an apologist for Serbian war crimes.

Some scientists hope the award for physiology or medicine honors colleagues instrumental in the development of the mRNA technology that went into COVID-19 vaccines, which saved millions of lives around the world.

“When we think of Nobel prizes, we think of things that are paradigm shifting, and in a way I see mRNA vaccines and their success with COVID-19 as a turning point for us,” said Deborah Fuller, a microbiology professor at the University of Washington.

Physics at times can seem arcane and difficult for the public to understand. But the last three years, the physics Nobel has honored more accessible topics: climate change computer models, black holes and planets outside our solar system.

Some harder-to-understand topics in physics — like stopping light, quantum physics and carbon nanotubes — could capture a Nobel award this year.

The Nobel announcements kick off Monday with the prize in physiology or medicine, followed by physics on Tuesday, chemistry on Wednesday and literature on Thursday. The 2022 Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on October 7 and the economics award on October 10.

The prizes carry a cash award of 10 million Swedish kronor (nearly $900,000) and will be handed out on December 10.

 

Source: Voice of America