WHO & Regionals [to 7 March 2015]

:: Ten top issues for women’s health
6 March 2015 — International Women’s Day is a day to celebrate women and their achievements. It’s also a day to take stock of how women’s rights, especially the right to health, are fulfilled in the world. Women still face many health problems. 8 March is an opportunity to re-commit to addressing issues ranging from cancer to reproductive health, from mental health to HIV. That’s why WHO and its partners are developing a new global strategy for women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health.
Read about the top 10 health issues for women

:: Global Alert and Response (GAR): Disease Outbreak News (DONs)
– 6 March 2015 Measles – WHO European Region
– 6 March 2015 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) – Saudi Arabia

:: The Weekly Epidemiological Record (WER) 6 March 2015, vol. 90, 10 (pp. 89–96) includes:
– Soil-transmitted helminthiases: number of children treated in 2013
– Ebola virus disease (EVD) in West Africa: an extraordinary epidemic
:: WHO Regional Offices
WHO African Region AFRO
:: WHO strives to provide universal access to immunization in the African Region by 2020
Brazzaville, 6 March 2015 – In efforts to prevent vaccine preventable diseases, health experts concluded a four-day meeting from 2 to 5 March that aimed to ensure that every child in the African Region has access to life-saving vaccines. It is estimated that over three million children under five years of age die each year in the Region and a significant number of these deaths could be prevented by vaccines.
One of the recent developments in the field of immunization is the existence of a Regional Strategic Plan for Immunization 2014–2020, endorsed by Member States during the 64th session of the Regional Committee meeting in November 2014, which provides policy and programmatic guidance to Member States for their immunization programmes. This strategic plan addresses the challenges countries in the WHO African Region and their partners need to overcome to provide universal access to immunization for all eligible populations by 2020…
…The two-day meeting, which was well attended, had immunization partners like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), U.S. Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC), USAID, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Rotary International, Gavi the Vaccine Alliance, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), the Network for Education and Support for Immunization (NESI) as well as the different Immunization Advisory Bodies in the Region, namely, the Task Force on Immunization (TFI) in Africa, the African Regional Certification Committee (ARCC), the Measles and Rubella Technical Advisory Group among others present.

:: Sugars contributing to emerging health threats in Africa – 04 March 2015

WHO Region of the Americas PAHO
:: PAHO and WHO urge countries to reduce sugar consumption among adults and children (03/04/2015)

:: Congenital anomalies are the second-leading cause of death in children under 5 in the Americas (03/02/2015)

WHO South-East Asia Region SEARO
:: Prevent birth defects, provide care for survivors 03 March 2015

WHO European Region EURO
:: European countries to meet in April to review progress on environment and health 05-03-2015

WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region EMRO
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WHO Western Pacific Region
:: WHO First Embrace campaign to save more than 50 000 newborn babies a year in the Region
MANILA, 5 March 2015 – The World Health Organization (WHO) Region for the Western Pacific launched First Embrace today — a campaign highlighting simple steps that will save more than 50 000 newborn lives, and prevent hundreds of thousands of complications each year from unsafe practices in newborn care in the Region.
– Read the news release