Filling the need for trusted information on national health issues
IRIN examines how a recent resolution to create an agency to promote women’s “rights and wellbeing” by the U.N. General Assembly is being welcomed by international HIV/AIDS advocates.
The U.N. this week will request that wealthy nations and development banks donate $1.48 billion to the help developing countries fight H1N1 (swine flu), Bloomberg reports.
Millions of additional people in the Horn of Africa could face food shortages this year because of poor harvests from a lack of rain, worsening conflicts and the El Nino climatic effect, the U.N. Food and Agriculture organization (FAO) said on Monday, Reuters reports.
TIME examines a voluntary airline tax, to be introduced in the U.S. and several European countries in January, that aims to “make up a shortfall in official government aid to poor countries — a shortfall exacerbated by the world financial crisis.” The tax will be used to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, and it will also go towards improving maternal health and reducing child mortality.
Research into intermittent preventive treatment of malaria in infants (IPTi) found that one-third of malaria cases in African babies can be prevented by giving them regular doses of malaria drugs even if they have not contracted the disease, according to a Lancet study, published on Thursday, Reuters reports.
Global food aid is at a 20-year low even though the number of “critically hungry people” is expected to reach the highest level ever, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) said on Wednesday, Reuters reports (9/16).
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice announced Monday that President Obama will host a luncheon for leaders of sub-Saharan African countries next week during the ministerial meeting of the U.N. General Assembly “to promote economic and social development,” the Associated Press/Washington Post reports.
By forging partnerships with developing countries, biotechnology companies from developed countries may be able to stay afloat during the current economic crisis and bolster innovation, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Nature Biotechnology, Livemint.com reports.
The annual number of deaths among children younger than five worldwide “has fallen below nine million” compared with 12.5 million in 1990, according to new data from UNICEF, the New York Times reports. “That’s 10,000 less children dying per day,” Ann Veneman, UNICEF’s executive director, said.
Nearly 600,000 West Africans Affected By Flooding, U.N. Says The U.N. on Monday “sharply increased its toll of the number of people affected by floods in West Africa, putting the number at more than 592,000 in no less than 10 countries,” Agence France-Presse reports. Yvon Edoumou, a spokesperson for the…