World Health Organization - The African Mirror

Nov

2023

Medics fear for patients inside main Gaza hospital, cut off after Israelis arrive

PALESTINIAN medics said that they are increasingly afraid for the lives of hundreds of patients and medical staff at Gaza's biggest hospital, cut off from all links to the outside world for more than a day after Israeli forces entered. Israel said its commandos were still searching through Al Shifa hospital on Thursday, more than a day after they entered its grounds as part of an offensive Israel says aims to wipe out Hamas militants in the Palestinian enclave. "The operation is shaped by our understanding that there is well-hidden terrorist infrastructure in the complex," an Israeli official said, declining to be identified.…

Nov

2023

By BIRD STORY AGENCY

Video – Massive vaccination campaign launched in Nigeria

HEALTH, MULTIMEDIA

NIGERIA has officially introduced a vaccine program against the human papillomavirus virus (HPV) into Nigeria's routine immunisation system, a pivotal moment in the country's fight against cervical cancer-related deaths. The Gavi-led initiative is supported by the Ministry of Health (MOH), the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, SYDANI, and various civil society organizations. A five-day mass vaccination campaign in schools and communities heralded the campaign. Under the campaign, Gardasil will be administered to girls between the ages of 9 to 14 years. The vaccine is known for its high effectiveness in preventing HPV types 16 and 18 infections, responsible for a…

Oct

2023

By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI and ARI RABINOVITCH

Gaza reports record 24-hour death toll from Israeli bombing

WORLD

THE Palestinian health ministry said that Israeli air strikes had killed more than 700 Palestinians in Hamas-run Gaza overnight, the highest 24-hour death toll in Israel's declared two-week-old total siege of the narrow strip. United Nations agencies pleaded "on our knees" on Tuesday for emergency aid to be allowed unrestricted into Gaza, saying more than 20 times current deliveries were needed to support the Palestinian population after two weeks of Israeli bombardment. The Israeli military said it had hit over 400 Hamas militant targets and killed dozens of its fighters overnight, but that it would take time to destroy Gaza's ruling Islamist…

Oct

2023

By The African Mirror

Dengue fever kills hundreds in Burkina Faso as cases spike

HEALTH

BURKINA Faso's health ministry has declared a dengue fever epidemic amid the deadliest outbreak in years in which more than 200 people have died and new cases are rising sharply. There have been 50,478 suspected cases and 214 deaths of the mosquito-borne illness this year, the ministry said in a statement, mostly in the urban centres of the capital Ouagadougou and Bobo Dioulasso. About 20% of the cases and deaths were recorded last week alone, it said. Dengue kills an estimated 20,000 people worldwide each year. Rates of the disease have risen eight-fold since 2000, driven largely by climate change,…

Oct

2023

By KRISHNA N. DAS

Exclusive: India allows cough syrup firm linked to Uzbek deaths to re-open factory

WORLD

INDIA'S Uttar Pradesh state has permitted the resumption of most production at a factory owned by Marion Biotech, whose cough syrups Uzbekistan linked to the deaths of 65 children last year, according to an order seen by Reuters. Marion is among three Indian companies whose cough syrups the World Health Organization (WHO) and other agencies have linked to the deaths of 141 children in Uzbekistan, Gambia and Cameroon since the middle of last year, in one of the world's worst such waves of poisoning. "There's no known case of a lack of quality in other medicines manufactured by the firm," the drug controller of…

Oct

2023

By GABRIELLE TÉTRAULT-FARBER and LEROY LEO

WHO recommends malaria vaccine that will be rolled out next year

HEALTH

THE World Health Organization (WHO) recommended the use of a second malaria vaccine to curb the life-threatening disease spread to humans by some mosquitoes. "Almost exactly two years ago, WHO recommended the broad use of the world's first malaria vaccine called RTS,S," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a briefing in Geneva. "Today, it gives me great pleasure to announce that WHO is recommending a second vaccine called R21/Matrix-M to prevent malaria in children at risk of the disease." R21/Matrix-M, developed by Britain's University of Oxford, will become available by mid-2024, Tedros said, adding that doses would cost between $2…

Jun

2023

By KRISHNA N. DAS

Gambia syrup deaths: India probes bribery claims

NEWS

INDIAN authorities have launched an inquiry into an allegation that a local pharmaceutical regulator, in return for a bribe, helped switch samples of cough syrups that the World Health Organization (WHO) had linked to the deaths of children in Gambia before the samples were tested at an Indian laboratory, according to two government officials and documents reviewed by Reuters. In an April 29 letter to the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) in Haryana state reviewed by Reuters, a lawyer named Yashpal accused the state's drug controller, Manmohan Taneja, of taking a bribe of 50 million rupees ($605,419) from local manufacturer Maiden Pharmaceuticals…

Jun

2023

By PAP SAINE and EDWARD MCALLISTER

Cough syrup deaths: Gambia mulls legal action

NEWS

GAMBIA has hired a U.S. law firm to explore legal action after a government-backed investigation found that contaminated medicines from India were "very likely" to have caused the deaths of children last year, the justice minister told Reuters. At least 70 children in Gambia, most under 5 years old, died from acute kidney injury between June and October. Local doctors suspected cough syrups imported from India were the likely culprit, Reuters reported earlier this year, and tests by the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the presence of lethal toxins, sparking a global hunt for contaminated medicines. Gambian Justice Minister Dawda Jallow…

Jun

2023

By AMINDEH BLAISE ATABONG

Cholera death toll rises to over 420 in Cameroon

NEWS

A further 26 people have died in Cameroon's ongoing cholera outbreak in the past two weeks, taking the overall death toll to 426, a health ministry official said. The outbreak was declared in October 2021 and has seen a strong increase in cases since late March of this year after a period of low transmission, according to the World Health Organization. The number of confirmed cases in Cameroon now stands at 1,868, said ministry official Linda Esso. Cholera can cause acute diarrhoea, vomiting and weakness and is mainly spread by contaminated food or water. It can kill within hours if…

Apr

2023

By GABRIELLE TÉTRAULT-FARBER and EMMA FARGE

‘High bio-hazard risk’ in Sudan after laboratory seized, WHO says

NEWS

THERE is a "high risk of biological hazard" in Sudan's capital Khartoum after one of the warring parties seized a laboratory holding measles and cholera pathogens and other hazardous materials, the World Health Organization said. Speaking to reporters in Geneva via video link from Sudan, the WHO's representative in the country, Nima Saeed Abid, said technicians were unable to gain access to the National Public Health Laboratory to secure the materials. "This is the main concern: no accessibility to the lab technicians to go to the lab and safely contain the biological material and substances available," he said, declining to…