Health & Well Being

Sport as a Tool for Achieving SDGs

By Desmond Brown

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (IDN) – Investing in sport can help reduce spiralling health costs and promote education, social cohesion and gender equality, says a new guidebook published by The Commonwealth.

The recommendations of the guidebook, titled ‘Enhancing the Contribution of Sport to the Sustainable Development Goals’, are important to the Caribbean, where chronic and communicable diseases are devastating to individuals and community, threatening the quality of life and becoming an increasingly negative factor in the region’s development.

: Desmond L. Brown; THE WORLD; Latin America & the Caribbean; 15 April 2017

New UN Report Highlights Impact of Climate Change on Health

By Rita Joshi

BONN (IDN) - While a new UN report finds that health risks related to climate change are on the rise worldwide, it avers that coordinated international responses can help prevent some of the worst impacts of climate change on health.

“The report clearly highlights the need for the UN and partners to continuously strengthen their actions to support governments to build climate resilience, including measures to protect human health,” says Youssef Nassef, Director of the Adaptation Programme of the UNFCCC secretariat.

The report, which will be presented to governments during the next round of climate change negotiations to be held in Bonn from May 8-18, 2017, was prepared in collaboration with countries, the World Health Organization and other relevant expert organisations, under the Nairobi work programme − UN Knowledge-for-Action Climate Resilience Network.

: Rita Joshi; UN INSIDER; 13 April 2017

Photo: Enos Masini, (in a grey suit and a tie) head of Kenya’s National Tuberculosis Leprosy and Lung Disease Programme, speaking during an event to mark the 2017 World TB Day in Kiambu Town, Central Kenya. Credit: Justus Wanzala

Kenya Targets Children in Steps to Combat TB

By Justus Wanzala

NAIROBI (ACP-IDN) – In Kenya, a high burden tuberculosis (TB) country, infants and young children are at very high risk of developing severe and often fatal strains of the disease, and are estimated to comprise 10-11 percent of all TB cases.

In order to combat the disease, primarily among children but also the population in general, the country is putting mechanisms in place, including better equipment for TB testing, and in 2016 became the first country in the world to roll out child-friendly TB medicines.

Overseen by TB Alliance, an international non-governmental organisation that supports the development of affordable tuberculosis drugs, the medicines are easier for caregivers to give and for children to take and are expected to help improve treatment and child survival.

: Justus Wanzala; THE WORLD; Africa; 12 April 2017

Photo: A UNFPA-supported health centre 400 kilometers southwest of Uganda’s capital Kampala, includes a ward where women in their final stages of pregnancy can remain comfortably and avoid arduous travel once labour begins. Photo: UNFPA/Omar Gharzeddine

U.S. Reasoning Behind Cutting Funds to UNFPA Challenged

By J Nastranis

This is the second in a series of reports analysing U.S. policy towards multilateralism in general and the UN in particular. The first was published on March 16, 2017. – The Editor

NEW YORK (IDN) – Voicing "deep regret" at the United States decision to cut financial support to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appealed to donors to increase their support for the UN Population Agency to allow it to continue its critical work.

Strongly criticising the U.S. decision, Catholics for Choice said the announcement of the decision in the same week as the 50th session of the Commission on Population and Development (Aprll 3-7) is "a deliberate slap in the face of women as the UN considers the importance of family planning for sustainable development."

: J Nastranis; UN INSIDER; 04 April 2017

Photo: The competition for the leadership of the World Health Organization is now down to three (left to right): Britain’s David Nabarro; Pakistan’s Sania Nishtar; and Ethiopia’s Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Source: devex | UN and the World Economic Forum.

Challenges and Opportunities for the Next WHO Chief

By Germán Velásquez*

GENEVA (IDN-INPS) - The World Health Organization (WHO) is in the most critical crossroad of its history but actions can and should be taken, to ensure its public health mission. This is the challenge for the new Director-General to be elected in May 2017.

This year is the last year of the mandate of the current Director-General, Margaret Chan, who fought for 9 years, to maintain a public agenda for the organization, that a small group of industrialized countries and philanthropic foundations had difficulty in accepting and supporting.

: South Centre; UN INSIDER; 17 March 2017

Photo: Mrs. Ayanna Webster-Roy, the Minister of State in the Office of the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, holding the portfolios of Gender and Child Affairs, Ecclesiastical Affairs and Central Administration Services is joined by Dereck Springer - Director of the PANCAP Coordinating Unit (third from left), Dr. Kevin Harvey - Caribbean Regional Director for the AIDS Healthcare (right); Dr Edward Greene, United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for AIDS in the Caribbean (fourth from left), with Caribbean Faith Leaders.

Caribbean Faith Leaders United to End HIV-AIDS

By Desmond Brown

KINGSTON, Jamaica (ACP-IDN) – Efforts to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Caribbean by 2030, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), received a much-needed boost from faith leaders across the region when they met from Feb. 1-2 in Port of Spain, Trinidad, to find ways to reduce and eliminate spread of the virus.

The Caribbean is one of the most heavily affected regions in the world, with adult HIV prevalence about one percent higher than in any other region outside sub-Saharan Africa.

: Desmond L. Brown; THE WORLD; Latin America & the Caribbean; 15 February 2017

Photo: Dr. Alex Magufwa examines a child suffering from severe malaria at Bahi hospital in Dodoma. Cedit: Kizito Makoye Shigela | IDN-INPS

Blood-Delivering Drones to Save Mothers, Babies in Tanzania

By Kizito Makoye Shigela

BAHI, Tanzania (ACP-IDN) – In Bahi, a remote district west of Tanzania’s capital Dodoma, local residents have always expected to donate blood whenever they go to hospital.

“My daughter had acute malaria and she urgently needed blood, yet there was no blood available,” local resident Hawa Ambweni told IDN. She said she had to pay some money to order blood from the district hospital.

“I was quite nervous waiting for the blood to arrive," she said. “My daughter’s life was in danger.”

: IDN-INPS Middle East & Africa Editor; THE WORLD; Africa; 08 February 2017

Photo: A Virgin Active gym in Soweto, Johannesburg South Africa. Credit: Africa Renewal | AMO | Robert Tshabalala

'Lifestyle Diseases' Pose Grave Challenges To Africa

By Zipporah Musau*

NEW YORK (IDN | Africa Renewal) - Anxiety grips Jennifer Nakazi as her phone beeps for the third time since she arrived at a busy bank lobby in downtown New York. She’s going to wire money to her family in Uganda. Her brother is calling with the latest update on their critically ill mother.

After battling diabetes for almost a decade now, the 63-year-old matriarch has just been hospitalized after her blood sugar level hit a record high. Her blood pressure also shot up, raising fears she could also be hypertensive.

: Africa Renewal; THE WORLD; Africa; 30 January 2017

Photo: Vinka Barunga. Credit: University of Western Australia.

More Indigenous Doctors Aim To Close Australia’s Health Gap

By Neena Bhandari

SYDNEY (IDN) - Vinka Barunga was born in the Worrara tribe of the Mowanjum Aboriginal community in the remote town of Derby in Western Australia. As a child, she witnessed disease and suicide amongst her people, which made her resolve to one day become a doctor and help break this cycle of suffering. She is one of six, the largest cohort of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) students, to graduate in Medicine/Surgery from the University of Western Australia this year.

Australia has fewer than 300 Aboriginal doctors, but things are gradually changing. Vinka is determined to be the first full time doctor in the town of her birth, situated around 2,400 kilometres north of the state capital Perth in the Kimberley region. It is the gateway to the state’s resource rich north, surrounded by mudflats on three sides, with two distinct seasons.

: Neena Bhandari; THE WORLD; Asia-Pacific; 27 December 2016

Photo: President Uhuru Kenyatta meets Mrs Jumwa Kabibu who after 50 years of misery underwent a successful UN supported fistula surgery. Credit: Newton/UNIC

Kenyan President’s Engagement with the UN a Big Deal

By Siddharth Chatterjee

NAIROBI (IDN) - President Uhuru Kenyatta warmly welcomed dozens of U.N Agencies, development partners and senior Government officials to the State House on November 2, 2016 to discuss the joint development plan from 2014-2018.

He is perhaps the only head of state in Africa to take on this responsibility personally and believes in the transformational power of the Government-UN partnership to address national priorities for sustainable development. (Speech/audio)

The United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) is a critical document that guides government and U.N, partnership, ensuring the UN system is fit for purpose and contributes effectively to national development priorities.