DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania — The smell of burning garbage wafted into Ester Kayombo’s bedroom, jolting her awake with the fear that her house was on fire. Nearby, heaps of rubbish were burning at the Pugu Kinyamwezi dumpsite, sending plumes of smoke billowing across the neighbourhood. Kayombo, a mother of three, feared for her three-year-old […] Continue reading ->
Who will steer the World Health Organization through its next chapter? Explore Health Policy Watch’s daily series examining the platforms, records, and institutional hurdles facing each contender for WHO Director-General, continuing today with Dr María Neira. Access all candidate profiles on our dedicated election site. The nomination of Dr María Neira by Spain introduces a […] Continue reading ->
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza –For Faten Youssef Ayyash, the gap between promises and action is measured in an earthen pit. She dug the drainage pit around her tent in Al-Mawasi, a crowded coastal area west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, so that water would not pool around the living quarters for her and her six […] Continue reading ->
Around 200,000 people in the Israeli-occupied West Bank will lose access to vital food aid from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) due to funding cuts, exacerbating food insecurity. In the Gaza Strip, the nutrition and health crisis is set to worsen further due to a lack of medical supplies and sanitation, the World […] Continue reading ->
Nearly a year after Israel and Hamas agreed to a US-brokered cease-fire, some 94% of Gaza’s 2.1 million Palestinian residents lack adequate shelters with 84% facing severe constraints in heating, cooling, cooking, lighting and hygiene and nearly 60% facing “critical” or “catastrophic” shelter needs. This according to a new analysis by the Global Shelter Cluster, […] Continue reading ->
Twice in three years – at its 75th anniversary and again this July at the Constitution’s 80th – the World Health Oganization (WHO) has told the official story of what it has achieved. Twice, water, sanitation, air, chemicals and climate have been left out. The former head of WHO’s environmental health programme argues this is […] Continue reading ->
The explosive growth of artificial intelligence is siphoning off water and electricity supplies used by communities around the globe, and creating new sources of air pollution and climate emissions from additional power generation. Yet, experts and industry representatives claim that the technology holds the key to mitigating the very crises it compounds. Advanced algorithms are […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) has only mobilised 37% of the funds it needs for the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO) amid a “deteriorating health situation”, regional director Dr Hanan Balkhy told a media briefing on Wednesday. Welcoming the two-week ceasefire between Iran and the United States-Israel, Balkhy called for the “permanent cessation of hostilities”, warning […] Continue reading ->
Senior United Nations officials and humanitarian leaders have urged Israel to reverse plans to withhold registration from more three-dozen international NGOs providing humanitarian relief in war-torn Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank – warning that the move would severely undermine life-saving aid in a moment of acute humanitarian need. Israel said last Thursday that some […] Continue reading ->
The US Environmental Protection Agency has dismissed a recent finding that atrazine, the second most widely-used herbicide in the United States, is “probably carcinogenic to humans” by the World Health Organization’s cancer review agency. Atrazine is used extensively in the US on crops like corn, sorghum, and sugarcane. However, over 60 countries have banned the […] Continue reading ->