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On the eve of World Health Day, WHO on Thursday called for concerted and urgent efforts to bridge gaps accentuated by the COVID-19 pandemic and achieving health for all through universal health coverage. WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh said the world health body is fully committed to achieving health for all through universal health coverage (UHC) and facilitating access to essential health services for all without financial hardship. On the World Health Day, the World Health Organisation (WHO) celebrates 75 years of improving public health and well-being globally. For decades, and even before the 1978 Declaration of Alma-Ata, leaders and policy makers from across the region have recognised the critical role that access for all to quality, affordable and comprehensive primary health care (PHC) can play in achieving UHC and therefore, health for all, she said. This has been well reflected in the region's renewed and decade-long push to achieve UHC
An estimated one in six people globally are affected by infertility, according to a new report from the World Health Organization published on Tuesday. The global health body noted that around 17.5 per cent of the adult population experience infertility, showing the urgent need to increase access to affordable, high-quality fertility care for those in need. The new estimates show limited variation in the prevalence of infertility between regions. The rates are comparable for high-, middle- and low-income countries, indicating that this is a major health challenge globally. Lifetime prevalence was 17.8 per cent in high-income countries and 16.5 per cent in low- and middle-income countries. WHO said. "The report reveals an important truth: infertility does not discriminate," said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General at WHO. "The sheer proportion of people affected show the need to widen access to fertility care and ensure this issue is no longer sidelined in health research
On World TB Day, WHO Friday called for an intensified whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to end the disease globally. It also highlighted the urgent need for strengthening high-level leadership and investments and accelerating the uptake of innovations and new recommendations of the world health body. Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has not just stalled but reversed years of progress towards ending tuberculosis, said WHO Regional Director for South-East Asia Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh. In 2021, the estimated burden of new and relapse tuberculosis cases globally was 10.6 million, a half-a-million increase from 2020. Mortality from TB and TB-HIV infection stood at 1.6 million, an increase of around 200,000 from pre-COVID-19 levels, she said. The WHO South-East Asia Region bears the world's highest tuberculosis burden. In 2021, the region accounted for more than 45 per cent of global tuberculosis incidence and more than half of global TB deaths. Throughout the COVID-19
US President Joe Biden on Monday signed a Bill, the "COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023", that requires the Director of National Intelligence to declassify information related to the origins of COVID.The US President in a statement on Monday said: "My Administration will continue to review all classified information relating to COVID-19's origins, including potential links to the Wuhan Institute of Virology; will declassify & share as much of that information as possible.""Today, I am pleased to sign into law S. 619, the "COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023." I share the Congress's goal of releasing as much information as possible about the origin of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). In 2021, I directed the Intelligence Community to use every tool at its disposal to investigate the origin of COVID-19, and that work is ongoing," Biden said in a statement released by The White House."We need to get to the bottom of COVID-19's origins to help ensure we can better prevent future pandemics. My
Exceeding the World Health Organization (WHO) ozone limit is associated with substantial increases in hospital admissions for heart attack, heart failure and stroke, according to a new study. The first evidence making this association is published in the European Heart Journal. Even ozone levels below the WHO maximum were linked with worsened health, the study said. "During this three-year study, ozone was responsible for an increasing proportion of admissions for cardiovascular disease as time progressed," said study author professor Shaowei Wu of Xi'an Jiaotong University, China. "It is believed that climate change, by creating atmospheric conditions favouring ozone formation, will continue to raise concentrations in many parts of the world. "Our results indicate that older people are particularly vulnerable to the adverse cardiovascular effects of ozone, meaning that worsening ozone pollution with climate change and the rapid ageing of the global population may produce even gre