Health

Child vaccination rates around the world are stagnating and have still not returned to their pre-Covid-19 pandemic levels, the UN warned on Monday July 15. “Compared to the level of 2019, before the pandemic, 2.7 million more children were still not vaccinated, or incompletely, in 2023,” said the United Nations …

Apart from cataracts, which are often associated with adulthood, myopia, hyperopia and presbyopia can begin at an early age. While some of these conditions may seem unavoidable, their impact could be mitigated by regular consumption of fruit. A study by Singaporean researchers reveals that eating grapes significantly improves eye health …

The World Health Organization said Tuesday there is an urgent need to combat the spread of monkeypox in Africa, shortly after scientists separately warned of a dangerous strain in the Democratic Republic of Congo. “There is a critical need to address the recent surge in mpox cases in Africa,” Rosamund …

More than one in four children under the age of 5 in the world live in “severe food poverty”, or more than 180 million children who risk serious after-effects due to lack of a nutritious and diversified diet, Unicef warns. A “shocking” number of children “survive on a very poor …

Tens of thousands of genetically modified (GMO) mosquitoes have been released in Djibouti in an effort to stop the spread of an invasive species that transmits malaria, the BBC reported. The friendly non-biting male Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes, developed by Oxitec, a UK-based biotechnology company, carry a gene that kills female …

More than 1,000 patients have died in Mozambique as health workers went on strike, local media reported. “The patients died because of lack of care,” the BBC quotes a union leader Anselmo Muchave, as saying. The strike by 50,000 union members began three weeks ago after negotiations over working conditions …

South African President Cyril Ramapahosa signed a controversial universal healthcare bill into law in Pretoria on Wednesday, local media reported. Mr Ramphosa described it as a major step towards a more just society. Despite Mr Ramaphosa’s enthusiasm when he signed the bill, many political groups have said they are considering …

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is due to sign into law a contentious national health bill that aims to provide universal coverage to millions of poor citizens. The National Health Insurance (NHI) bill seeks to give South Africans “of all races, rich or poor and legal long-term residents” access to …

Forty-four cholera cases have been reported in Kenya’s Tana River county, as flooding raises the risk of spread of water-borne diseases, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. A statement by the World Health Organization (WHO) which cites the numbers, says Kenyan officials supported by WHO and other agencies have been …

Three women were diagnosed as HIV positive, that is to say infected with HIV, in the United States, after having undergone a “vampire lift” or “vampire facial”, cosmetic injections to the face which would make the skin younger and more smooth. According to a report from the Centers for Disease …