The post Ebola deaths in eastern Congo rise to 131, WHO voices deep concern first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

In a landmark decision, the World Health Organization (WHO) is poised to officially endorse the use of weight-loss drugs for treating obesity in adults, marking a significant shift in its strategy to combat this global health crisis.

A memo has revealed the WHO’s plans, which also include calls for improved access to these treatments in low- and middle-income countries.

Obesity affects over a billion people globally, with approximately 70 per cent residing in low- and middle-income countries, according to WHO and World Bank data.

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://www.independent.co.uk/health-and-wellbeing/weight-loss-jabs-wegovy-who-obesity-b2743115.html

The post World Health Organization makes U-turn on weight loss jabs first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (left), the director-general of the World Health Organization, shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping before a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Jan. 28. NAOHIKO HATTA – POOL/GETTY IMAGES

While the novel coronavirus is changing the world, China is trying to do the same. Already a serious strategic rival of the United States with considerable international clout, it’s now moving into a new field—health.

After initial denials and cover-ups, China successfully contained the COVID-19 outbreak—but not before it had exported many cases to the rest of the world. Today, despite the falsehoods it initially passed on, which played a critical role in delaying a global response, it’s trying to leverage its reputed success story into a stronger position on international health bodies.

Most critically, Beijing succeeded from the start in steering the World Health Organization (WHO), which both receives funding from China and is dependent on the regime of the Communist Party on many levels. Its international experts didn’t get access to the country until Director-General Tedros Adhanom visited President Xi Jinping at the end of January. Before then, WHO was uncritically repeating information from the Chinese authorities, ignoring warnings from Taiwanese doctors—unrepresented in WHO, which is a United Nations body—and reluctant to declare a “public health emergency of international concern,” denying after a meeting Jan. 22 that there was any need to do so.

After the Beijing visit, though, WHO said in a statement that it appreciated “especially the commitment from top leadership and the transparency they have demonstrated.” Only after the meeting did it declared, on Jan. 30, a public health emergency of international concern. And after China reported only a few new cases each day, WHO declared the coronavirus a pandemic March 11—even though it had spread globally weeks before.

[Mapping the Coronavirus Outbreak: Get daily updates on the pandemic and learn how it’s affecting countries around the world.]

WHO was keen to broadcast Beijing’s message. “In the face of a previously unknown virus, China has rolled out perhaps the most ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history,” WHO experts said in their February report on the mission to China. The country had gained “invaluable time for the response” in an “all-of-government and all-of society approach” that has averted or delayed hundreds of thousands of cases, protecting the global community and “creating a stronger first line of defense against the international spread.”

China’s “uncompromising and rigorous use of non-pharmaceutical measures” provides vital lessons for the global response, the WHO report said. Beijing’s strategy “demonstrated that containment can be adapted and successfully operationalized in a wide range of settings.” However, while recommending China’s epidemic control policy to the world, WHO neglected the negative externalities—from economic damage to the failure to treat many non-coronavirus patients, psychological woes, and human rights costs.

It’s not surprising that China’s containment strategy was effective, said Richard Neher, a virologist at the University of Basel. “The big lockdown, centralized quarantine, and contact tracing for sure accelerated the decline,” Neher said. Lawrence O. Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, points to “major human rights” concerns with the lockdown techniques pioneered in China and now—to a different degree—adopted in many nations. Gostin recommends standard public health measures like testing, treatment, contact tracing, and isolation or quarantine “as scientifically justified.”

While the rising number of cases elsewhere shows that China isn’t alone in failing in the initial stages of an outbreak, the full story of the Chinese loss will probably never be known—and certainly not recognized by WHO or other bodies.

One reason is that official data from China is often highly dubious—which can lead to ill-advised health policies in other countries, since studies based on information from China are the first used to understand COVID-19. Countless cases of people dying at home in Wuhan—some being described in social media posts—will probably never go into the statistics. And while a report by Caixin on the Chinese province of Heilongjiang said that a considerable percentage of asymptomatic cases has not been reported—which amounts to about 50 percent more known infections in China, according to a South China Morning Post report on classified government data—WHO takes numbers reported by Beijing at face value.

“I thought the greatest success of the Chinese party-state was in getting the WHO to focus on the positive sides of China’s responses and ignore the negative sides of the responses,” said Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the SOAS University of London. “With the WHO presenting China’s responses in a positive light, the Chinese government can make its propaganda campaign to ignore its earlier mistakes appear credible and to ignore the human, societal, and economic costs of its responses.”

Indeed, WHO closes its eyes to such problems. “China reported and isolated ALL individuals with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19,” Christian Lindmeier, a WHO spokesperson, said in mid-March. However, Chinese authorities only in the beginning of April started to make current numbers of asymptomatic cases with lab-confirmed infections public—which also are included in the WHO case definition for COVID-19. “Every country has its self-reporting processes”, Lindmeier said. WHO epidemiologist Bruce Aylward, who headed the visit, said in an interview that China was not hiding anything. When asked how many people have been put in quarantine, isolation, or residential restriction, Lindmeier referred to numbers from China’s National Health Commission—which are much smaller than the numbers calculated by the New York Times. “WHO works with these data,” he said.

Yet it is unclear whether the WHO experts who traveled to China sufficiently understood the situation on the ground. For example, based on numbers from the South China province of Guangdong, WHO argued that undetected cases are rare. However, a screening program for COVID-19 only included patients seen at fever clinics; most of them probably showed at least a fever. In Germany, most of the people who tested positive did not show a fever. It is easily possible that there has been a substantial number of undetected cases, Neher said, which is the “big unknown” in calculations of the death rate.

WHO also left many questions open about how exactly public engagement was managed in its report. Chinese people have reacted “with courage and conviction,” it says; they have “accepted and adhered to the starkest of containment measures.” While this is probably true for many, others were likely motivated by a statement of the Supreme People’s Court: People carrying the virus who don’t follow quarantine restrictions “face jail terms ranging from three to 10 years if the consequence is not serious,” it says. Otherwise, they could face a life sentence or death.

“The community has largely accepted the prevention and control measures and is fully participating in the management of self-isolation and enhancement of public compliance,” the WHO report says. In China, no measures have been implemented that could not also be used elsewhere, Aylward claimed in an interview. Apparently, the WHO mission didn’t have the chance to speak with people with opposing views. Many Chinese people told him that they all have been attacked together and need to react in a united fashion, Aylward said.

The very uniformity of this narrative should have been a wake-up call, said Mareike Ohlberg from the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies. Indeed, the whole trip of both foreign and national experts seems to have been organized along Potemkin-esque lines for a team where most of its international members lacked linguistic skills and familiarity with China. “We didn’t have much interaction until after all the site visits,” said Clifford Lane, a deputy director at the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the delegation. It was his first trip to China, he told Science. “I was really surprised by how modern the cities were.”

Ohlberg said the statements of the WHO have clearly been heavily influenced by the Chinese Communist Party. She says she was surprised that, from the start, many experts uncritically repeated information from Beijing and “preached confidence in the WHO and the Chinese government.” The WHO report rightly emphasized the heroic commitment of the population of Wuhan. “But it’s important that the WHO does not degrade itself to an instrument of the Chinese government—which does not want to make transparent how the population suffered,” she said.

Osman Dar, a global health expert at Public Health England and the Royal Institute of International Affairs, said that China is no different from other countries that seek to exert influence. WHO had evolved out of colonial-era international sanitary conferences convened by the European powers and expansionist U.S. policy, he said. Since WHO was controlled and largely influenced by the national interests of Western powers before, in the past 20 years, countries like China “have started to have more influence in the global health space.”

Beijing’s say is growing not only at WHO but also in the health policies of more and more countries. This also is an important area in China’s Belt and Road Initiative and its activities in African countries. It may be doubted whether Beijing always acts in the best interests of its partners. “Chinese health aid allocation is poorly related to direct health needs of African countries,” French researchers last year concluded.

The same is true for the current outbreak, which is politically important, said Tankred Stöbe, former president of MSF (Doctors Without Borders) Germany and a former member of the International Board of MSF International. In February, he traveled to Southeast Asia (SEA) as a COVID-19 emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders. Countries like Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand “cannot escape the influence of China,” he said. “I know about meetings where representatives of China have said: Dear friends in Southeast Asia, we’re interested in continuing good cooperation. It is clear for us that you must let your borders open—otherwise, we would have to rethink our friendship.” The countries “cannot refuse,” Stöbe said. Countries like Cambodia and Pakistan kept accepting flights from China during the outbreak.

For political reasons, “Vietnam can’t close its border with China,” physician Rafi Kot told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. He founded several medical centers in the country. “The Chinese have put immense pressure on everyone: the Koreans, Vietnam, everyone,” he told the newspaper. “Asian countries cannot act as they want vis-a-vis China because it’s the big power in the neighborhood.” While Cambodia closed its borders to several Western countries in mid-March, it started military drills together with hundreds of Chinese soldiers, which concluded this Monday.

Source: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/02/china-coronavirus-who-health-soft-power/

The post How WHO Became China’s Coronavirus Accomplice first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (left), the director-general of the World Health Organization, shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping before a meeting at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Jan. 28. NAOHIKO HATTA – POOL/GETTY IMAGES

hile the novel coronavirus is changing the world, China is trying to do the same. Already a serious strategic rival of the United States with considerable international clout, it’s now moving into a new field—health.

After initial denials and cover-ups, China successfully contained the COVID-19 outbreak—but not before it had exported many cases to the rest of the world. Today, despite the falsehoods it initially passed on, which played a critical role in delaying global response, it’s trying to leverage its reputed success story into a stronger position on international health bodies.

Most critically, Beijing succeeded from the start in steering the World Health Organization (WHO), which both receives funding from China and is dependent on the regime of the Communist Party on many levels. Its international experts didn’t get access to the country until Director-General Tedros Adhanom visited President Xi Jinping at the end of January. Before then, WHO was uncritically repeating information from the Chinese authorities, ignoring warnings from Taiwanese doctors—unrepresented in WHO, which is a United Nations body—and reluctant to declare a “public health emergency of international concern,” denying after a meeting Jan. 22 that there was any need to do so.

After the Beijing visit, though, WHO said in a statement that it appreciated “especially the commitment from top leadership, and the transparency they have demonstrated.” Only after the meeting did it declared, on Jan. 30, a public health emergency of international concern. And after China reported only a few new cases each day, WHO declared the coronavirus a pandemic March 11—even though it had spread globally weeks before.

[Mapping the Coronavirus Outbreak: Get daily updates on the pandemic and learn how it’s affecting countries around the world.]

WHO was keen to broadcast Beijing’s message. “In the face of a previously unknown virus, China has rolled out perhaps the most ambitious, agile and aggressive disease containment effort in history,” WHO experts said in their February report on the mission to China. The country had gained “invaluable time for the response” in an “all-of-government and all-of society approach” that has averted or delayed hundreds of thousands of cases, protecting the global community and “creating a stronger first line of defense against international spread.”

China’s “uncompromising and rigorous use of non-pharmaceutical measures” provides vital lessons for the global response, the WHO report said. Beijing’s strategy “demonstrated that containment can be adapted and successfully operationalized in a wide range of settings.” However, while recommending China’s epidemic control policy to the world, WHO neglected the negative externalities—from economic damage to the failure to treat many non-coronavirus patients, psychological woes, and human rights costs.

It’s not surprising that China’s containment strategy was effective, said Richard Neher, virologist at the University of Basel. “The big lockdown, centralized quarantine, and contact tracing for sure accelerated the decline,” Neher said. Lawrence O. Gostin, director of the WHO Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, points to “major human rights” concerns with the lockdown techniques pioneered in China and now—to a different degree—adopted in many nations. Gostin recommends standard public health measures like testing, treatment, contact tracing, and isolation or quarantine “as scientifically justified.”

While the rising number of cases elsewhere shows that China isn’t alone in failing in the initial stages of an outbreak, the full story of the Chinese loss will probably never be known—and certainly not recognized by WHO or other bodies.

One reason is that official data from China is often highly dubious—which can lead to ill-advised health policies in other countries, since studies based on information from China are the first used to understand COVID-19. Countless cases of people dying at home in Wuhan—some being described in social media posts—will probably never go into the statistics. And while a report by Caixin on the Chinese province of Heilongjiang said that a considerable percentage of asymptomatic cases has not been reported—which amounts to about 50 percent more known infections in China, according to a South China Morning Post report on classified government data—WHO takes numbers reported by Beijing at face value.

“I thought the greatest success of the Chinese party-state was in getting the WHO to focus on the positive sides of China’s responses and ignore the negative sides of the responses,” said Steve Tsang, director of the China Institute at the SOAS University of London. “With the WHO presenting China’s responses in a positive light, the Chinese government is able to make its propaganda campaign to ignore its earlier mistakes appear credible and to ignore the human, societal, and economic costs of its responses.”

Indeed, WHO closes its eyes to such problems. “China reported and isolated ALL individuals with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19,” Christian Lindmeier, a WHO spokesperson, said in mid-March. However, Chinese authorities only in the beginning of April started to make current numbers of asymptomatic cases with lab-confirmed infections public—which also are included in the WHO case definition for COVID-19. “Every country has its own self-reporting processes”, Lindmeier said. WHO epidemiologist Bruce Aylward, who headed the visit, said in an interview that China was not hiding anything. When asked how many people have been put in quarantine, isolation, or residential restriction, Lindmeier referred to numbers from China’s National Health Commission—which are much smaller than the numbers calculated by the New York Times. “WHO works with these data,” he said.

Yet it is unclear whether the WHO experts who traveled to China sufficiently understood the situation on the ground. For example, based on numbers from the South China province of Guangdong, WHO argued that undetected cases are rare. However, a screening program for COVID-19 only included patients seen at fever clinics; most of them probably showed at least a fever. In Germany, most of the people who tested positive did not show a fever. It is easily possible that there has been a substantial number of undetected cases, Neher said, which is the “big unknown” in calculations of the death rate.

WHO also left many questions open about how exactly public engagement was managed in its report. Chinese people have reacted “with courage and conviction,” it says; they have “accepted and adhered to the starkest of containment measures.” While this is probably true for many, others were likely motivated by a statement of the Supreme People’s Court: People carrying the virus who don’t follow quarantine restrictions “face jail terms ranging from three to 10 years if the consequence is not serious,” it says. Otherwise, they could face a life sentence or death.

“The community has largely accepted the prevention and control measures and is fully participating in the management of self-isolation and enhancement of public compliance,” the WHO report says. In China, no measures have been implemented that could not also be used elsewhere, Aylward claimed in an interview. Apparently, the WHO mission didn’t have the chance to speak with people with opposing views. Many Chinese people told him that they all have been attacked together and need to react in a united fashion, Aylward said.

The very uniformity of this narrative should have been a wake-up call, said Mareike Ohlberg from the Berlin-based Mercator Institute for China Studies. Indeed, the whole trip of both foreign and national experts seems to have been organized along Potemkin-esque lines for a team where most of its international members lacked linguistic skills and familiarity with China. “We really didn’t have much interaction until after all the site visits,” said Clifford Lane, a deputy director at the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a member of the delegation. It was his first trip to China, he told Science. “I was really surprised with how modern the cities were.”

Ohlberg said the statements of the WHO have clearly been heavily influenced by the Chinese Communist Party. She says she was surprised that, from the start, many experts uncritically repeated information from Beijing and “preached confidence in the WHO and the Chinese government.” The WHO report rightly emphasized the heroic commitment of the population of Wuhan. “But it’s important that the WHO does not degrade itself to an instrument of the Chinese government—which does not want to make transparent how the population suffered,” she said.

Osman Dar, global health expert at Public Health England and the Royal Institute of International Affairs, said that China is no different from other countries that seek to exert influence. WHO had evolved out of colonial-era international sanitary conferences convened by the European powers and expansionist U.S. policy, he said. Since WHO was controlled and largely influenced by the national interests of Western powers before, in the past 20 years, countries like China “have started to have more influence in the global health space.”

Beijing’s say is growing not only at WHO, but also in the health policies of more and more countries. This also is an important area in China’s Belt and Road Initiative and its activities in African countries. It may be doubted whether Beijing always acts in the best interests of its partners. “Chinese health aid allocation is poorly related to direct health needs of African countries,” French researchers last year concluded.

The same is true for the current outbreak, which is politically important, said Tankred Stöbe, former president of MSF (Doctors Without Borders) Germany and a former member of the International Board of MSF International. In February, he traveled to Southeast Asia (SEA) as a COVID-19 emergency coordinator for Doctors Without Borders. Countries like Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand “cannot escape the influence of China,” he said. “I know about meetings where representatives of China have said: Dear friends in Southeast Asia, we’re interested in continuing good cooperation. It is clear for us that you must let your borders open—otherwise we would have to rethink our friendship.” The countries “cannot refuse,” Stöbe said. Countries like Cambodia and Pakistan  kept accepting flights from China during the outbreak.

For political reasons, “Vietnam can’t close its border with China,” physician Rafi Kot told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. He founded several medical centers in the country. “The Chinese have put immense pressure on everyone: the Koreans, Vietnam, everyone,” he told the newspaper. “Asian countries cannot act as they want vis-a-vis China because it’s the big power in the neighborhood.” While Cambodia closed its borders to several Western countries in mid-March, it started military drills together with hundreds of Chinese soldiers, which concluded this Monday.

The post How WHO Became China’s Coronavirus Accomplice first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The hyalomma tick was discovered in Dorset last year and was 10 times larger in size than average, as experts believe the blood-sucking parasites have mutated to survive the cold winters.

‘The next ebola’

Hyalomma ticks are usually only found in Africa, Asia and parts of southern Europe, but one was removed from a horse in Dorset last September and sent to Public Health England (PHE) for analysis.

Tests found the creature was carrying rickettsia spotted fever, which can cause headaches, cramps and blisters in humans, but ticks are also known to carry the deadly Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus, dubbed “the next ebola”.

The deadly virus, also known as Congo fever, results in death in around two fifths of all cases and there are currently no proven vaccines available to prevent it.

According to the World Health Organisation, onset of symptoms is sudden, prompting fever, muscle aches, dizziness, neck pain and sore eyes.

Infected people may also suffer with nausea, diarrhoea, abdominal pain, sore throat and confusion early on, while severely ill patients can experience rapid kidney deterioration, liver failure and internal bleeding.

The mortality rate is approximately 30 per cent, with death occurring in the second week of illness.

A ‘threat to public health’

The discovery of a deadly tick in Dorset could “present a threat to public health in the UK,” the PHE said.

It is currently not known whether any more ticks have been found in the UK this year, but there have been six reported cases in Germany so far. Experts in Munich believe the creatures have mutated to survive the cold winters, rather than being brought into the country by migratory birds.

Dr Ute Mackenstedt, a parasitologist at the University of Hohenheim, told The Sun, “If the development cycle is taken into account, this cannot be the case here, as the ticks would have had to have been introduced at a time where the migratory birds had not even arrived.

“According to the latest evidence, we have to presume that these animals are able to survive the winters in Germany.”

Five of the hyalomma ticks were found on a horse at a stables, meaning there is a possibility of a possible pairing and the emergence of an independent population.

High-risk areas

Hyalomma ticks can grow to as long as two centimetres and are much larger than the local wood tick. Originating in Iran, before spreading into Asia, the Middle East, southern Europe and Africa, the ticks are recognisable by their large size and striped legs.

There are several types of tick in the UK, but the sheep tick – known as Ixodes ricinus – is the most common.

A bite from a tick can cause a number of health problems, such as Lyme disease and tick-borne encephalitis, which in some cases can be fatal.

They can be found all across the UK, but high-risk areas include grassy and wooded spots in southern England, East Anglia, the Yorkshire Moors and the Scottish Highlands.

If you have been walking through high risk areas, you should check yourself for ticks as a precaution, paying attention to folds in the skin and the hairline.

To reduce the risk of being bitten, take the following precautions when heading outdoors:

– Cover your skin when walking outdoors

– Tuck your trousers into your socks, or wear longer socks when walking through long grassy areas

– Use insect repellent on your clothes and skin – products containing DEET are most effective

– Stick to paths wherever possible

– Wear light-coloured clothing, so ticks are easier to spot and brush off

– Carry out a tick check

Source: https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/health/congo-fever-deadly-ticks-carrying-ebola-like-virus-found-in-uk-and-europe-1-4951054

The post Congo Fever: Deadly ticks carrying Ebola-like virus found in UK and Europe first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

The World Health Organization on Tuesday said tens of thousands of people are believed to be infected with dengue fever on La Réunion. The island – a French territory – is a popular vacation destination in the Indian Ocean.

Dengue is a set of viruses found in tropical and sub-tropical parts of the world. Humans get dengue from being bitten by mosquitos infected with the virus.

Health officials on the island told the WHO of the disease outbreak in March 2018. About 50,000 probable cases of the disease were reported between 2018 and April of this year. That includes 22,000 so far in 2019, the health agency said in a statement.

The WHO described the rise of confirmed and probable cases reported last year as unprecedented.

There is no treatment. But with early discovery and good medical care, fewer than one percent of people infected die from the disease.

The WHO said 14 people have died in the Réunion outbreak since 2018. The territory has a population of 866,500.

Around the world, the number of dengue cases dropped from 2017 to 2018. But there has been a huge increase in 2019, especially in Vietnam, Australia, Cambodia, China, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore.

More about dengue

About one in four people infected with dengue will get sick. Of those who do get sick, the symptoms can be mild to severe.

Severe dengue can be deadly and often requires hospitalization. Only a small percentage of people get severe dengue. Mild dengue can be mistaken for other sicknesses, such as influenza.

Symptoms often begin four to seven days after being bitten and commonly last two days to one week. They can include high fever, severe headaches, fatigue, vomiting, and, in severe cases, bleeding.

The first dengue vaccine, Dengvaxia, was approved in 2015 for use in Mexico, Brazil and the Philippines. Several other countries followed in 2016.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Dengvaxia in 2019. The WHO says the vaccine should not be given to people who have not had an earlier dengue infection.

The World Health Organization notes that dengue fever is now common in over 100 countries. Forty percent of the world’s population lives in an area at risk for dengue.

I’m Caty Weaver.

Tom Miles wrote this report for Reuters news agency. Alice Bryant adapted it for Learning English with additional information from WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ashley Thompson was the editor.

Words in This Story

destination – n. a place to which a person is going or something is being sent

tropical – adj. of or relating to the part of the world that is near the equator where the weather is very warm

mosquito – n. a small flying insect that bites the skin of people and animals and sucks their blood

unprecedented – adj. not done or experienced before

symptom – n. a change in the body or mind which indicates that a disease is present

mild – adj. not harsh or severe

vomiting – gerund. the act of food or liquid that is in your stomach coming out through your mouth because you are sick (verb: vomit)

Source: https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/who-dengue-fever-numbers-rise-on-la-r%C3%A9union-/4926841.html

The post WHO: Dengue Fever Numbers Rise on La Réunion (now common in 100 countries) first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

Additional resources and funding are needed “to pull people back from the brink of famine” in Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia and northeast Nigeria, the U.N. Security Council said in an Aug. 9 statement that commended efforts by international donors to provide humanitarian assistance for the crises in these countries.

Catholic church officials and representatives of Catholic aid agencies spoke with Catholic News Service about the enormous efforts being channeled into meeting the needs of those most vulnerable.

Governments “are reducing aid, while needs are skyrocketing,” said Elizabeth Carosella, who works for the U.S. bishops’ Catholic Relief Services in Abuja, Nigeria.

Humans cannot control the weather patterns, such as drought. But increasingly, aid officials find access to areas of need blocked by ongoing conflicts or inaccessible because of poor infrastructure.

Jerry Farrell, country representative in South Sudan for CRS, was Save the Children’s country director in Yemen until mid-2014. He called the situation in Yemen “horrific,” a famine that is entirely man-made. Seventy percent of the country’s 14 million people need some form of humanitarian aid.

Yemen has relied entirely on imported food since 1991 and “now it is sealed off from the rest of the world,” Farrell said. Yemen has been embroiled in civil war since 2015, which includes a Saudi-led blockade of the country.

Yemen’s food system has collapsed, Farrell said, noting that even hospitals have been bombed, and it is “as difficult to get medical supplies into the country as it is to get food in.”

The World Health Organization reports 436,000 cases of cholera in Yemen.

Bishop Paul Hinder, who heads the Apostolic Vicariate of Southern Arabia from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, told CNS that the blockade of Yemen hinders the reconstruction of the destroyed sanitary system.

“As long as the minimal infrastructure in many parts of the country is not functioning, we cannot expect that the cholera can be stopped” or that “the starving people” can be properly fed, Bishop Hinder said.

“Without bringing people again around the table” to agree on a cease-fire, “there will be only killing and destruction with disastrous consequences for the civilian population,” he said.

“As the church is reduced to a tiny group without any structure, little can be done from our side at present,” he said.

“As I believe in the power of the prayer, I can only ask the faithful around the world to keep in mind the suffering people in Yemen — Muslims as well as the few remaining Christians, including the Missionaries of Charity,” Bishop Hinder said.

In South Sudan, nearly 2 million people are on the cusp of famine, Farrell said, and it is hard to get food to the hungry because the country has “virtually no infrastructure.” South Sudan, a country slightly smaller than Texas, has only 12,000 miles of road, which is “more like track than road,” said Farrell, noting that “the lack of infrastructure can’t be separated from the conflict.”

In the fertile land of South Sudan’s Western Equatoria state, which has avoided the drought afflicting other parts of the country, little grows because of the war, he said. And even if the residents were still able to grow mangoes and papayas in this “breathtakingly beautiful place,” there are no roads to get any excess food to people outside, he said.

“Fresh food rots because it takes weeks to get it out of there with tracks to follow instead of roads, and one can expect frequent ambushes along the way,” Farrell said.

In distributing food airdropped by the World Food Program, CRS finds “some places very difficult to get to because of active conflict,” he said. Other places are unreachable for many months because of flooding. People often walk four or five miles to food distribution points in South Sudan, he added.

About 200,000 of the 2 million internally displaced people in South Sudan are in U.N.-run camps, Farrell said. The rest have fled into the bush or into neighboring communities, “and they all want to go home to their land.”

Farrell said the tragedy of South Sudan “tires me out more and fills me with more sorrow” than even Yemen’s situation did. In 2013, two years after gaining independence from Sudan, South Sudan was caught up in a civil war.

“South Sudan is a new country, rich in resources, and all this suffering is preventable,” said Farrell, who is based in the capital, Juba.

“Education is what matters most for young people because they will be the new leaders,” he said. Instead, because of the conflict and violence, all efforts need to be directed into emergency feeding programs, “while 75 percent of women in the country cannot read or write,” he said.

Maryknoll Fr. John Barth, who is based in Eastern Equatoria state, told CNS South Sudanese “are giving up hope and moving to the camps in northern Uganda by the thousands; I see them along the road when I drive back and forth across the border.”

Uganda is hosting about 1 million refugees from South Sudan. They move because “they have no food,” Barth said.

Teachers and others with government jobs have not been paid their monthly salaries in five months, and “even if they had been paid it would be the equivalent of about $6, because the 500 percent inflation has ruined the value of the South Sudanese pound,” Barth said.

In northeastern Nigeria, the effects of violent conflict as well as changing weather patterns have exacerbated poverty and led to 5 million people in need of emergency food aid, Carosella told CNS, noting that deaths from famine-related causes have already occurred in Borno state. Since 2009, more than 20,000 people have been killed and 2.7 million forced to flee their homes by the Boko Haram insurgency, aimed at creating an Islamic state in northeast Nigeria.

Carosella said while the severity of the region’s hunger crisis is caused by conflict, the shorter rainy season of recent years has dramatically reduced harvests, and much of Lake Chad has dried up, partly because of shifting climate patterns.

Many of those forced to flee the violence have sought refuge among communities in remote rural areas, she said, noting that these communities are themselves among the most vulnerable in the region and depend on humanitarian aid to survive. Remote rural communities hosting people displaced by Boko Haram attacks have been “immensely generous despite their own poverty,” she said.

Carosella said Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, “used to be a trade hub, but its markets have been destroyed” by the Boko Haram attacks.

“People have lost their livelihoods and now can’t afford food and have no access to even basic services,” she said.

Even where food can be found, it is unaffordable for most people, she said.

Sometimes a very malnourished woman will sell part of her food ration for cash that will enable her to transport a sick child to a clinic, Carosella said.

“Having to make that choice is something no one should have to face,” she said.

She told of a 24-year-old woman she met at a hospital in Maiduguri.

“She fled her village with her four children, all under 5 years old, after seeing her husband and parents slaughtered” in an attack by Boko insurgents, Carosella said.

One of her children died in the 32 days it took her to walk to the hospital, where her “malnourished children were able to be rehabilitated,” Carosella said. “She was looking for livelihood opportunities when I met her,” she said, noting that “there are so many women in similar positions.”

Somalia’s “continuous conflict and instability,” along with changing weather patterns, are responsible for its current crisis, Lane Bunkers, CRS country representative for Kenya and Somalia, told CNS.

The conflict started in 1991 when clan-based warlords overthrew dictator Siad Barre, then turned on each other. Today, the security threat posed by al-Shabab activity in south-central Somalia makes it difficult for CRS and others running emergency food programs to reach remote rural communities, Bunkers said.

Somalia is a “very undeveloped country that relies on rain, with rain-fed pasturelands,” and there has been insufficient rain for two years in a row, Bunkers said.

Drought conditions in Somalia are expected to continue, and recovery will not be until at least 2018, CRS said in a statement. More than 766,000 people have been displaced by the drought since November, it said.

In south-central Somalia, which includes the capital, Mogadishu, CRS has civil society partners to channel its resources for humanitarian relief.

“Somalia has very well-organized communities,” Bunkers said, noting that local communities have “stepped in to fill the void in education and health services” in partnerships with international nongovernmental organizations.

Somalis are “entrepreneurial people in a desperately poor country,” which has exceptionally active markets, Bunkers said. This is “born out of necessity” in a country that has had no functioning government for close to three decades, he said.

Somalis’ “wealth is held in their herd of animals,” Bunkers said, noting that in times of drought, men leave women and children behind and follow their goats, sheep or camels, seeking water and grazing land.

“It’s very rare to resort to killing animals for food” in Somalia, Bunkers said.

To help families where animals are already in distress, some relief agencies “pay the farmer for his goat and have him slaughter it so that his family has something to eat,” he said.

“The farmers are then able to use the cash at the markets to replenish their livelihoods,” he said.

Source: https://www.ncronline.org/news/world/20-million-people-conflict-added-drought-means-no-food-eat

The post For 20 million people, conflict added to drought means no food to eat first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

At least 1,975 people have died since the waterborne disease began to spread rapidly at the end of April.

The WHO said the overall caseload had declined since July, but that 5,000 people a day were still being infected.

The disease spread due to deteriorating hygiene and sanitation conditions and disruptions to the water supply.

More than 14 million people are cut off from regular access to clean water and sanitation in Yemen, and waste collection has ceased in major cities.

—Yemen children facing huge cholera risk
—A nation’s agony as cholera and hunger spread
—Yemen’s cholera epidemic ‘largest ever recorded’

Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by ingestion of food or water contaminated with the bacterium Vibrio cholera.

Most of those infected will have no or mild symptoms but, in severe cases, the disease can kill within hours if left untreated.

More than a quarter of those who have died and 41% of those who have been infected have been children, according to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Yemen’s health service has struggled to cope with the cholera epidemic – currently the largest in the world – with more than half of all medical facilities closed due to damage sustained during more than two years of conflict between pro-government forces and the rebel Houthi movement.

The WHO said shortages in medicines and supplies were persistent and widespread, and that 30,000 health workers had not been paid in almost a year.

“Yemen’s health workers are operating in impossible conditions,” said the WHO’s director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“Thousands of people are sick, but there are not enough hospitals, not enough medicines, not enough clean water.

“These doctors and nurses are the backbone of the health response – without them we can do nothing in Yemen. They must be paid their wages so that they can continue to save lives.”

The WHO’s director of emergency operations, Rick Brennan, meanwhile told the BBC that despite the “downward trend” in the number of cases, the rainy season might result in “spikes” during August and September.

Dr Tedros called on all sides in Yemen’s conflict, which has killed more than 8,160 people and injured 46,330 since March 2015, to urgently find a political solution.

“The people of Yemen cannot bear it much longer – they need peace to rebuild their lives and their country,” he added.

Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-40922963

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The warming climate has unpredictable and wide-ranging impacts on the environment. Some climate effects on human health are direct, such as extreme weather and rising sea levels that threaten low-lying areas. Other climate change effects on health are no less unpredictable but more indirect.

The Asian Tiger mosquito and Yellow Fever mosquito species are now present in parts of Europe thanks to warmer temperatures, bringing the risk of tropical diseases with them.
August and September are the primary transmission season for mosquito-borne diseases.

The Asian Tiger mosquito and Yellow Fever mosquito species, which can act as disease vectors between humans, have facilitated the rise in cases of tropical diseases in Southern Europe in the last decade.

Italy saw the first locally acquired case of “chikungunya” in Europe, with over 200 individuals affected. Chikungunya causes fever and severe joint pain that is often debilitating and can vary in duration.

There have also been cases of “dengue fever” in France, Madeira, and Croatia. Dengue causes bleeding, low levels of blood platelets and plasma, joint pain, and fever.

And the first EU cases of “West Nile fever” were detected in Italy and Romania in 2016.

The Asian Tiger mosquito is now listed as one of the top 100 invasive species by the Invasive Species Specialist Group.

It is thought that the invasion of the foreign mosquito species occurred when eggs were contained within bamboo imports to Europe, and in standing water found within imported vehicle tires.

Misdiagnosis
The rising trend in cases of tropical diseases is concerning.

While they are treatable, European doctors are not familiar enough with the diseases to diagnose them when patients have symptoms. The patient can, due to late or misdiagnosis, become much sicker before the appropriate treatment begins.

A further challenge for healthcare systems is that the diseases concerned are transmissible by blood.

The region of Ravenna, Italy, that saw the Chikungunya outbreak in 2007, suspended blood donations in the affected area to reduce the risk of transmission through blood transfusion. This was challenging because treatment for Chikungunya includes blood transfusion.

Ravenna’s health authorities were faced with rising demand for blood and a lower supply, which it then had to acquire externally from other regions.

For the same reasons, donations of blood by those who have travelled to an endemic region for tropical diseases, like malaria, would be refused for a period of months after their return as a precaution.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) monitors tropical disease outbreaks. While data reporting by member states of the ECDC is not mandatory, the level of compliance is high on tropical diseases.

Close monitoring and regular public updates are put into action during the transmission season. Disease fact sheets for governments and healthcare professionals are important aspects of the response, given how healthcare professionals usually know little to nothing about tropical diseases.

The ECDC’s resources are beneficial whether the disease is acquired in Europe, or when infected people return from travelling to endemic regions such as Africa and the Indian subcontinent.

The pharmaceutical industry has been criticised for not investing sufficiently in tropical disease vaccines and treatments. However, governments, academia and industry are increasingly turning their attention to finding new treatments for tropical diseases in recent years.

Public private partnerships, including the EU’s Innovative Medicines Initiative, have also sought to drive more research on neglected diseases.

NGOs have run campaigns to raise awareness and funding for the developing world on tropical diseases.

There are also organisations such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding towards the prevention of tropical diseases, with programmes on bed nets and mosquito control.

Climate change driving disease
According to the World Health Organization, malaria kills more than half a million victims worldwide every year. Around 40 percent of the world’s population is exposed to this disease, and 250 million cases are reported annually.

The growing number of cases in Europe provide important lessons for healthcare systems on how climate change can be a driver of disease migration and how migration, travel and insect disease factors fit into that picture.

Steve Bridges is an independent health policy adviser in Brussels. His Health Matters column takes a closer look at health-related policies, issues and trends in the EU.

Source: https://euobserver.com/health/138689

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