WHO

Female healthcare worker using smart phone outdoors in front of hospital in the evening.

September 4, 2024 11:54 AM

No link between mobile phones and brain cancer, WHO-backed study says

There is no link between mobile phone use and an increased risk of brain cancer, according to a new World Health Organization-commissioned review of available published evidence worldwide. Despite the huge rise in the use of wireless technology, there has not been a corresponding increase in the incidence of brain cancers, the review, published on Tuesday, found. That applies even to people who make long phone calls or those who have used mobile phones for more than a decade. The final analysi...

August 29, 2024 11:02 PM

Israel, Hamas agree to zoned three-day pauses for Gaza polio vaccinations, WHO says

The Israeli military and Palestinian militant group Hamas have agreed to three separate, zoned three-day pauses in fighting in the Gaza Strip to allow for the vaccination of some 640,000 children against polio, a senior WHO official said on Thursday. The vaccination campaign is due to start on Sunday, said Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization's senior official for the region. He said the campaign would start in central Gaza with a three-day pause in fighting, then move to southern Gaz...

Human crowd surrounding an injectable monkey pox vaccine bottle on purple background. Horizontal composition with copy space.

August 23, 2024 5:10 PM

WHO says partners can start talks to buy mpox vaccines before their approval

The World Health Organization said on Friday its partners like Gavi and Unicef can start buying mpox vaccines before they are approved in a bid to get inoculations to Africa faster as the continent battles an escalating outbreak of the virus. Traditionally, organisations like Gavi, which helps lower-income countries buy vaccines, can only start purchasing shots once they have approval from the WHO. But the rules have been relaxed in this instance to get talks moving, as the WHO's approval is du...

SUQIAN, CHINA - NOVEMBER 23, 2022 - Financial Illustration: MPOX, Suqian City, Jiangsu Province, China, November 23, 2022. The World Health Organization plans to rename monkeypox "MPOX". (Photo credit should read CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

August 19, 2024 11:06 AM

PM Modi intensifies monitoring of Mpox situation

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has intensified the oversight of India’s Mpox preparedness following the World Health Organization's (WHO) recent declaration of the disease as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). The WHO renewed its global health alert on August 14, citing the escalating spread of Mpox, particularly in Africa, where the Democratic Republic of Congo has seen a sharp rise in cases. Since 2022, the virus has affected more than 99,000 people worldwide, resulti...

August 8, 2024 12:05 PM

WHO to convene emergency committee to assess international risk from mpox outbreak

The head of the World Health Organization said on Wednesday an emergency committee will be convened to discuss whether the current mpox outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo represents a public health emergency of international concern. The current mpox outbreak in Congo has already seen around 27,000 cases, and claimed more than 1,100 lives, most of them children, since the beginning of 2023. The WHO said that 50 more mpox cases had been confirmed and more were suspected in four countr...

July 31, 2024 3:33 PM

Polio cases ‘very likely’ in Gaza population, WHO says

It is very likely that polio has infected people in the Gaza Strip, in what would be a setback for global efforts to eradicate the disease, a World Health Organization spokesperson said on Tuesday. Gaza's health ministry declared a polio epidemic across the Palestinian enclave late on Monday after samples of the virus were found in sewage. It has not announced any human cases. According to the WHO, polio is now endemic only in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but more than 30 countries are still list...

July 26, 2024 4:36 PM

WHO sends over 1 mln polio vaccines to Gaza to protect children

The World Health Organization is sending more than one million polio vaccines to Gaza to be administered over the coming weeks to prevent children being infected after the virus was detected in sewage samples, its chief said on Friday. "While no cases of polio have been recorded yet, without immediate action, it is just a matter of time before it reaches the thousands of children who have been left unprotected," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in an opinion piece in Britain's T...

June 26, 2024 5:17 PM

Wake up Call for South Asia; 45% adults at risk of disease due to physical inactivity:WHO

Nearly 31% of adults worldwide and 45% in South Asia are not doing enough physical activity, posing a growing threat to health across the world, a major study said on Wednesday. The findings point to a worrying trend of physical inactivity among adults, which has increased by about 5 percentage points between 2010 and 2022, according to a study by the World Health Organization and other researchers. If the trend continues, levels of inactivity are projected to further rise to 35% worldwide by 2...

June 25, 2024 5:19 PM

WHO, scientists warn on mpox strain in Congo

The spread of mpox in Africa needs to be addressed urgently, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday, as scientists warned separately of the dangers of a new strain spreading in a hard-to-reach part of Democratic Republic of Congo. "There is a critical need to address the recent surge in mpox cases in Africa," said Rosamund Lewis, the WHO's technical lead for mpox, in a briefing note to journalists. In a separate briefing, John Claude Udahemuka of the University of Rwanda, who has been w...

MARSEILLE, FRANCE - 2022/01/16: A hen is seen in a farm. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, France has more than 150 farms infected with avian flu or also known as bird flu, two-thirds of which are in the Landes Department. (Photo by Gerard Bottino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

June 12, 2024 11:13 AM

WHO confirms human case of bird flu in India

The World Health Organization on Tuesday said a case of human infection with bird flucaused by the H9N2 virus was detected in a four-year-old child in West Bengal. The patient was admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit (ICU) of a local hospital due to persistent severe respiratory issues, high fever and abdominal cramps in February, and was discharged three months later after diagnosis and treatment, the WHO said. The patient had exposure to poultry at home and in his surroundings, and ...