#WorldLeprosyDay; #UN; #UNHealth; #WHO; #EndDiscrination

New York, Jan 26 (Canadian-Media): Governments must put an end to the informal segregation and institutionalized neglect of hundreds of thousands of women and children affected by leprosy, an independent UN human rights expert said on Sunday, World Leprosy Day, UN media release reported today.

“Too many women and children affected by leprosy – also known as Hansen's disease – are victims of stereotypes, physical and verbal abuse, delays of diagnosis and lack of adequate care”, declared Alice Cruz, UN Special Rapporteur on the elimination of discrimination against persons affected by leprosy and their family members.
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The UN expert expressed concern over the “complete lack of specific plans by States to address the particular needs of women and children affected by leprosy and to end discrimination and violence against them”.

Citing institutional reasons, Ms. Cruz’s last report said that too many cases of women and children who are affected, go under reported.

Although their immature immune systems appear to be more prone to leprosy, some 10 to 20 per cent of children stop taking medicines because available treatments are simply not appropriate for their age.

Moreover, almost half of affected women experience depression and/or suicidal thoughts.
“Affected people are not only those left furthest behind, they are actively being kept out of the agenda, out of history,” she said.

Discriminatory practices endure

​Affected people and their families have been “systematically subjected to dehumanization in different cultural backdrops”, according to Ms. Cruz.

“Stigmatization remains institutionalized in the States’ architecture and functioning”, she said, noting that over 50 countries have hundreds of discriminatory laws against leprosy-affected people.

The UN expert welcomed improvements in the response of some Governments, including in awareness-raising activities, campaigns to improve detection and early diagnosis, and access to treatment.

Nevertheless, she regretted that too many States with high incidence rates and discriminatory laws did not reply to her requests for visits or had they yet arranged a visit, months after they accepted her request.

“States must abolish all discriminatory laws and implement the Principles and guidelines for the elimination of discrimination against persons affected by leprosy and their family members,” Ms. Cruz said, also calling for more inclusion of leprosy-affected women and children in the decision-making processes impacting their lives.

The Special Rapporteurs are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. They are appointed by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council to examine and report back on a specific human rights theme or a country situation. The positions are honorary and the experts are not UN staff, nor are they paid for their work.

#HongKong; #StateOfEmergencyDueToCoronavirus; Coronavirus; #StateOfEmergency

Hong Kong, Jan 25 (Canadian-Media): A state of emergency has been declared in Hong Kong due to the five cases of the new illness and to close primary and secondary schools for two more weeks after the Lunar New Year holiday, media reports said.

Coronavirus/Twitter

The outbreak of Coronavirus which began in Wuhan in central China had spread to the rest of the country and overseas.

A marathon in Hong Kong  expected to draw 70,000 participants on Feb. 9 has been cancelled.

Expansion of transportation bans has been extended to 16 cities, with three more added Saturday, holding a population of more than 50 million people suffering from the virus.

Chinese authorities have cancelled a host of Lunar New Year events, and closed major tourist sites and movie theatre.

Australia and France have announced people infected with virus.

Growing economic fears due to the widening crisis caused slumping of stocks and shares Friday on Wall Street, The Dow Jones, S&P 500,  health care companies, along with those in financial institutions, airlines and other tourism and travel industry businesses.

Medical teams are being brought from outside Hubei to help handle the outbreak.

Ongoing Coordination efforts going on by the Ministry of Commerce to supply more than 2 million masks and other products from elsewhere in the country.

Wuhan will build a second dedicated hospital with 1,300 beds after the completion of the first 1,000 bed hospital.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention said it is expecting more Americans to be diagnosed with the virus.

​Still, "CDC believes that the immediate risk to the American public continues to be low at this time, but the situation continues to evolve rapidly," said the agency's Dr. Nancy Messonnier.

#UN; #Coronavirus; #EmergencyInChina; #PreparationToPreven&TreatVirus

Geneva, Jan 23 (Canadian-Media): The head of the UN health agency, WHO (World Health Organization), declared on Thursday that the respiratory disease Novel Coronavirus, is not yet an official Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), but warned that is an emergency in China, UN News release said.

People wear face masks as they wait at China's Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport arrivals. UN News/Jing Zhang

However, after two days of deliberations, the WHO Emergency Committee, which advises the head of the agency, was divided on whether to declare a PHEIC.

The disease has spread rapidly to several countries including Japan, Singapore and the USA, and Tedros Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO, said in a press conference held in Geneva on Thursday that the outbreak poses a “very high risk” in China, as well as regionally and globally.

‘There’s still a lot we don’t know'

Mr. Tedros outlined the known facts about Novel Coronavirus. It causes severe diseases, he said, and it can kill, but in most cases, it causes milder symptoms: “We know that among those infected, one quarter of patients have experienced severe disease and that it can kill. We know that most of those who have died had underlying health conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, or cardiovascular disease, that weakened their immune systems.

“We know that there is human-to-human transmission in China, but for now it appears limited to family groups and health workers caring for infected patients. At this time there is no evidence of human-to-human transmission outside China, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't happen”.

Mr. Tedros said that as of Thursday evening, 584 cases have now been reported to WHO, including 17 deaths. The vast majority of cases (575) have been reported in China.

Cases have also been reported in Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand, the United States of America and Vietnam, with further possible cases being investigated in other countries; among them, the United Kingdom.

‘Working night and day’

The WHO chief acknowledged that there are still many unknown factors: “We don't know the source of this virus. We don't understand how easily it spreads and we don't fully understand its clinical features or severity.

WHO is working with our partners night and day in China and the other affected countries at the regional level, and here at headquarters, to fill the gaps in our knowledge as quickly as possible”.

More cases are expected in China, despite the actions taken by the Chinese authorities to control the outbreak. The country has succeeded in isolating and sequencing the virus, and has shared those genetic sequences with WHO and the international community.

The WHO chief warned, that the agency’s decision should not be taken as a sign that it is doing nothing: “WHO is following this outbreak every minute of every day. At a country, regional and global level, we're working to prevent human to human transmission.

“We have provided guidance to all countries for the rapid identification, management and containment of the virus based on the sequence we've got from China. We're coordinating our networks of global experts. We're working to advance the development of diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines. We are completely committed”.

Committee could meet again ‘in a matter of days’

A statement released by WHO soon after the press conference, noted that the Committee members agree on the urgency of the situation, and suggested the Committee should be reconvened “in a matter of days” to examine the situation further.

The Committee made a number of recommendations regarding measures to control the outbreak. Its members advised WHO to provide information to the international community via an international multidisciplinary operation, in order to enhance understanding of the situation and its public health impact.

The Chinese authorities were encouraged in the statement to provide more information on the ways they are managing the risk of further cases, and to work with the WHO and other partners to better understand the evolution of the outbreak.

All countries, recommends the Committee, should be prepared to contain the virus, through active surveillance, early detection, isolation, case management, and prevention of onward spread of infection, and to share full data with WHO.

A comprehensive list of the Committee’s advice and recommendations can be found in the WHO statement.

#UN; #EndingAid; #UNAIDS; #Poverty; #Women&GirlsVulnerable; #TaxAvoidance; #AfricanDebtBurden; #AfricanDebtBurden; 

United Nations, Jan 23 (Canadian-Media): The UN agency devoted to ending AIDS as a public health threat is calling on top politicians and governments across the world to ensure the right to quality healthcare is upheld, and not just a privilege to be enjoyed by the wealthy, UN news release said.

In a press release issued as the World Economic Forum gets fully underway in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said that the right to health “is eluding the poor and people trying to lift themselves out of poverty are being crushed by the unacceptably high costs of health care”, with at least half the world’s population unable to access essential health services.

“The richest one per cent benefit from cutting-edge science while the poor struggle to get even basic health care,” she added.

The independent international Forum (WEF) in Davos is an annual gathering, committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders in reshaping the economic agenda.

100 million pushed into extreme poverty

Every two minutes a woman dies while giving birth, said the agency, with vulnerable women, adolescents, people living with HIV, gay men and other men who have sex with men, sex workers, people who inject drugs, transgender people, migrants, refugees and the poor, among the billions being left behind.

Nearly 100 million people are pushed into extreme poverty (defined as living on $1.90 or less a day) because they have to pay for health care, and more than 930 million people - around 12% of the world’s population - spend at least 10% of their household budgets on health care, said UNAIDS.
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In many countries, people are denied health care or receive poor quality health care because of unaffordable user fees. Stigma and discrimination denies poor and vulnerable people, especially women, their right to health.

Women and girls most vulnerable

Every week, 6,000 young women around the world continue to become infected with HIV. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, four out of five new HIV infections among adolescents are recorded among girls, and AIDS-related illnesses are the biggest killer of women of reproductive age in the region. Despite significant progress in reducing AIDS-related deaths and new HIV infections, there were 1.7 million new HIV infections in 2018 and nearly 15 million people are still waiting to receive HIV treatment.

“Publicly financed health care is the greatest equalizer in society” said Ms Byanyima. “When health spending is cut or inadequate, it is poor people and people on the margins of society, especially women and girls, who lose their right to health first, and they have to bear the burden of caring for their families.”

Governments must do better

Delivering health care for all is a political choice that too many governments are not making, said the agency. For example, Thailand has managed to reduced mortality rates for children under the age of five, to 9.1 per 1000 live births, while in the United States of America the rate is 6.3 per 1000 live births, even though Thailand’s gross domestic product per capita is about one tenth of that of the United States.

That success can be attributed to Thailand’s publicly financed health-care system that entitles every Thai citizen essential health services at all life stages and leaves no one behind, UNAIDS maintains.

South Africa had just 90 people on antiretroviral therapy in 2000, but in 2019 had more than 5 million on HIV treatment. The country now has the largest HIV treatment programme in the world.

Price of tax avoidance

And tax avoidance on the part of the top one per cent, and the wealth that they control, continues to deny resources to healthcare the world over, the agency maintains.

“It is unacceptable that rich people and big companies are avoiding taxes and ordinary people are paying through their ill health” said the UNAIDS chief. “Big companies must pay their fair share of taxes, protect employee rights, provide equal pay for equal work and provide safe working conditions for all, especially women.”

African debt burden

Debt is also posing a serious threat to Africa’s economy, health and development, resulting in big cuts in social spending to ensure debt repayment, the agency notes.

According to the International Monetary Fund, as of April 2019 half of low-income countries in Africa were either in debt distress or at a high risk of being so. Beyond low-income countries, in Zambia there was a 27% drop in health-care investments and an increase of debt servicing by 790% between 2015 and 2018. Similar trends were seen in Kenya, where debt servicing increased by 176% and health investments declined by 9% between 2015 and 2018.

Rights denied

Another driver of ill health is the denial of human rights, said UNAIDS. According to the World Bank, more than one billion women lack legal protection against domestic violence and close to 1.4 billion women lack legal protection against what they term, domestic economic violence.

In at least 65 countries, a same-sex sexual relationship is a crime, with a knock-on effect in formal legal rights to healthcare, including hospital and insurance access. In recent years in some countries, crackdowns and restrictions on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex people have increased. Sex work remains a criminal offence in 98 countries, notes the agency.

Progress can be made

​“In the next decade, we can end AIDS as a public health threat and achieve universal health coverage”, said Ms. Byanyima, calling on governments everywhere to “tax fairly, provide publicly funded quality health care, guarantee human rights and achieve gender equality for all—it is possible.”

#UN; UNHealth; #WHO; #PHEIC; #Coronavirus

Geneva, Jan 22 (Canadian-Media): Experts convened in Geneva by the World Health Organization (WHO) will meet again on Thursday to determine whether novel coronavirus is a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC), UN news release said.

A woman wears a medical mask in China. (file photo). Credit: World Bank/Curt Carnemark

Members of the WHO Emergency Committee deliberated until late on Wednesday evening, as they continue to study an outbreak of the new respiratory virus first identified in China, as cases continue to rise.  

“There was an excellent discussion during the committee today, but it was also clear that to proceed, we need more information”, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in statement. 

“The decision about whether or not to declare a public health emergency of international concern is one I take extremely seriously, and one I am only prepared to make with appropriate consideration of all the evidence.” 

Novel coronavirus was first identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan. 

By Wednesday, there were more than 440 confirmed cases, and 17 reported deaths, almost doubling the death toll in the space of one day. 

All of the deaths have occurred in Wuhan, which has a population of some 11 million, similar to that of the UK capital, London.  Now the entire city, has in effect, been quarantined, according to news reports.

Chinese authorities have reportedly urged people to stop travelling in or out of the city, going as far as to temporarily shut down public transport, but have acknowledged that efforts to curtail the outbreak will be made more difficult by the week-long Lunar New Year holiday, which sees hundreds of millions criss-crossing the country visiting relatives.  

On Wednesday, the Chinese city of Macau reportedly confirmed its first case of Novel Coronavirus, and there have been cases in Thailand, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the US.   
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Several places have reportedly stepped up airport screening procedures for passengers arriving from Wuhan, including Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the USA, Russian and Japan.  

Members of the WHO Emergency Committee deliberated until late on Wednesday evening, as they continue to study an outbreak of the new respiratory virus first identified in China, as cases continue to rise.  

“There was an excellent discussion during the committee today, but it was also clear that to proceed, we need more information”, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in statement. 

“The decision about whether or not to declare a public health emergency of international concern is one I take extremely seriously, and one I am only prepared to make with appropriate consideration of all the evidence.” 

Novel coronavirus was first identified in the Chinese city of Wuhan. 

By Wednesday, there were more than 440 confirmed cases, and 17 reported deaths, almost doubling the death toll in the space of one day. 

All of the deaths have occurred in Wuhan, which has a population of some 8.9 million, similar to that of the UK capital, London.  

Chinese authorities have reportedly urged people to stop travelling in or out of the city, going as far as to temporarily shut down public transport, but have acknowledged that efforts to curtail the outbreak will be made more difficult by the week-long Lunar New Year holiday, which sees hundreds of millions criss-crossing the country visiting relatives.  

On Wednesday, the Chinese city of Macau reportedly confirmed its first case of Novel Coronavirus, and there have been cases in Thailand, Korea, Japan, Taiwan and the US.   
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Several places have reportedly stepped up airport screening procedures for passengers arriving from Wuhan, including Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the USA, Russian and Japan.  

#CoronavirusVirusInChinaRises; #GlobalHelthConcern; #VirusThilandJapan&USConfirm
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Wuhan (China), Jan 22 (Canadian-Media): With the sharp increase in the number of cases affected with the new viral illness to 470, including fifteen Chinese medical personnel China. and nine deaths, Chinese health authorities has raised a global concern, media reports said.

And, the director-general of China's Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Gao Fu, said virus was adapting and mutating, giving rise to a big challenges for health authorities.

​There had been confirmed cases of virus Wednesday in Thailand, Japan, South Korea, the United States and Taiwan people from Wuhan or who recently had traveled there.

Jiao Yahui, a health commission official, said "the disease will continue to develop. It has developed different features compared with the early stage, and the prevention and precautionary measures need to change accordingly."

#Dhaka; #DhakaAirport; #screeningfOfPassengers; #China; #ChinaVirusScare

Dhaka, Jan 21 (Canadian-Media):  Screening process of passengers visiting Bangladesh from China has started in Bangladesh's Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka, due to scare of  breakout of a new SARS-like virus in China, media reports said.

Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka. Image credit: Twitter

Group Captain AHM Touhid-ul Ahsan, director of the airport said that out of the three flights operating on the China-Bangladesh route, one of US Bangla and two Chinese airlines -- China Eastern and China Southern -- screening began with passengers of a flight that arrived around 7:30 in the morning from China and added that screening of passengers traveling in the other two flights will also take place.

Steps have been taken today to screen passengers from China arriving via transit at Chattogram’s Shah Amanat International Airport in order to prevent breakout of a new SARS-like virus.

#China; #SouthKorea; #MysteriosVirus; #ChineseAuthorities; #newCoronavirus; #SARS; #WHO

Beijing (China), Jan 20 (Canadian-Media):  A third death from a mysterious virus and more than 130 new cases over the weekend, including ones found in Beijing and southern China for the first time were reported by the Chinese authorities, and one case was also reported in South Korea on Monday, media reports said.

Mysterious virus in China. Image credit: Facebook

China's Public health officials, greatly concerned about both -- the transmission of virus, and spread of the disease -- ahead of China’s busiest travel season with hundreds of millions of people in China expected to travel for the Lunar New Year holiday, which starts Friday, are working to stop a major outbreak.
 
The total number of cases in China to around 200, more than double the number reported just a day earlier.

There is a growing among some experts that the outbreak could be more severe than China’s government has described. The virus has already spread outside China.

On Sunday, China’s central government reassured the public that the situation was under control.

Although Beijing’s National Health Commission said that experts agreed that an epidemic was “still preventable and controllable,” still, the commission acknowledged their worry about the source of the mysterious virus and its path of transmission could not be understood.

The mutation of the virus still needs to be closely monitored,” the statement said.

“If you cannot find the source and control the source of the virus, you cannot extinguish the fire,” said David Hui, the director of the Stanley Ho Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Although Dr. Hui said the risk of the virus spreading from human to human appeared to be low, he noted that the virus could mutate.

The World Health Organization said on Sunday it would continue to examine the issue as it remained unclear whether it can easily spread from one person to another. 

"We do not have enough evidence to evaluate the full extent of human-to-human transmission,” its Manila office said.

According to the latest information received and @WHO analysis, there is evidence of limited human-to-human transmission of #nCOV.

This is similar to other respiratory illnesses and in particular with other coronavirus outbreaks.

There are probably far more cases of the illness than disclosed by the authorities, some experts suggested.

There could now be as many as 1,700 cases of the new virus, one estimate by researchers at Imperial College London suggested on Friday.

The W.H.O. said on Sunday that there is a probability of more confirmed cases by China  in the coming days and weeks as more people were screened for it.

The new virus is reminiscent of the SARS outbreak, which was also caused by a coronavirus. SARS, which probably jumped to humans from animals at markets, had its origin in China and spread to other countries, infecting more than 8,000 people causing death of more than 800.

While the new coronavirus appears to be less severe than SARS, public health officials around the world are exercising caution.

On Friday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States announced that airports in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles would begin screening passengers from Wuhan for the virus.

“Until it becomes capable of human-to-human transmission, there’s not a major threat of a pandemic,” said Dr. Lipkin, the director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at the university’s Mailman School of Public Health.

“We need to prepare for the possibility that this could be a larger outbreak, and it could become a pandemic,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean that it will.”

“Never has the threat of antimicrobial resistance been more immediate and the need for solutions more urgent”, said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

The reports also found that antibiotics research and development is primarily driven by small or medium-sized enterprises, as large pharmaceutical companies continue to exit the field.
“Numerous initiatives are underway to reduce resistance, but we also need countries and the pharmaceutical industry to step up and contribute with sustainable funding and innovative new medicines.”

Clinical development review

With the aim of encouraging the medical research community to develop treatments for resistant bacteria, in 2017, WHO published a list of 12 classes of bacteria plus tuberculosis, that were resistant to most existing treatments and, thus, increasingly jeopardize human health.

Of the antibiotic agents in the pipeline, only a precious few target the rapidly spreading, multi-drug resistant Gram-negative bacteria. 

Gram-negative bacteria, such as E-coli, can cause severe and often deadly infections that particularly threaten people with weak or not-yet-fully-developed immune systems, including newborns, the elderly, and people undergoing cancer treatment.

“It’s important to focus public and private investment on the development of treatments that are effective against the highly resistant bacteria because we are running out of options”, says Hanan Balkhy, WHO Assistant Director-General for Antimicrobial Resistance.  “And we need to ensure that once we have these new treatments, they will be available to all who need them.”

In the pipeline

The pre-clinical pipeline shows more innovation and diversity, with 252 agents under development to treat WHO-priority pathogens.

However, these products are in the very early stages and still need to be proven safe and effective. Forecasts suggest the first two to five products will not become available for another 10 years, said the report.

On a more positive note, the pipeline for antibacterial agents to treat tuberculosis and Clostridium difficile, which causes diarrhoea, is more promising, saying that more than half of the treatments fulfil all WHO-defined innovation criteria.

However, WHO makes clear that new treatments alone will not be sufficient to combat the threat of antimicrobial resistance and its scientists are working with countries and partners to improve infection prevention and control.

With the goal of delivering five new treatments by 2025, WHO and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative have established a non-profit research and development organization called the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership, to develop new and improved antibiotics that tackle drug-resistant infections.

The enterprise is currently working with more than 50 public and private sector partners in 20 countries to develop and ensure sustainable access to treatments.