Between fear and hope, Gazans parents line up in their thousands to protect their children from polio

Wael al-Haj Mohammed’s daughter is a child of war. Born the day after the outbreak of the  conflict in Gaza between Hamas and Israel forces that began last October, Mr. Mohammed has struggled to get medical care. She is one of the thousands of children benefiting from the mass polio vaccination campaign, which began on […]

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UN officials repeat calls for peace as Gaza polio vaccinations gets underway

Hundreds of Gazan families have been queueing to await the turn of their child to receive a polio vaccination since early Sunday morning, in a campaign designed to stop the resurgence of a virus whose re-emergence has been blamed on insanitary conditions. Speaking to international media on Sunday, Sam Rose, a spokesperson for UNRWA, the […]

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Humanitarian pauses in Gaza pave way for polio vaccinations

WHO Representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), Dr. Rik Peeperkorn, said that the two-round vaccination campaign is due to begin this Sunday in central Gaza for three days, then move to the southern and northern areas. A second dose will be administered after four weeks. “During each round of the campaign, the Palestinian Ministry […]

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Level of unprotected teenage sex ‘worryingly high’, WHO finds

This is putting young people at greater risk of sexually transmitted infections, unsafe abortions and unplanned pregnancies. The new data was published as part of the multi-part Health Behaviour in School-aged Children study, which surveyed over 242,000 15-year-olds across 42 countries in Europe, central Asia, and Canada from 2014 to 2022. ‘Pervasive’ decrease in condom use […]

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Nigeria becomes first in Africa to receive mpox vaccines: WHO

On 14 August 2024, the chief of the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the rise of mpox, formerly monkeypox, a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC). Following his announcement, the chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said he was working with partners to facilitate equitable access to vaccines. The United States government has donated the Jynneos […]

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UN upholds safety and efficacy of Gaza polio vaccine

Dire conditions brought on by the war have caused the disease to resurface after more than two decades.  Last week, a case was confirmed in a 10-month-old. Countering vaccine misinformation  During his daily media briefing from New York on Tuesday, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric noted that there had been misinformation surrounding the vaccine. “I want […]

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Africa: Refugees and displaced face heightened threat from mpox outbreak

According to UNHCR, 42 suspected mpox cases have been detected in the South Kivu Province of the DRC – the war-ravaged central African country which is the epicentre of the outbreak. There have been other suspected and confirmed cases among refugee populations in the Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. Caseload grows On 14 August, […]

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Rights experts reveal impact of Poland’s restrictive abortion laws on women

These restrictive laws have forced many women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, travel abroad to have legal abortions or seek private unsafe procedures, based on information from the UN human rights office (OHCHR). The report from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) published on Monday, found that most abortions […]

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Polio vaccines arrive in Gaza in boost to vaccination campaign: UNICEF

More than 640,000 children are targeted to receive the polio type two (nOPV) vaccines, UNICEF said in a post on X. The World Health Organization (WHO), the UN’s main agency assisting Palestine refugees (UNRWA) and other partners aim to coordinate to reach the unvaccinated as the war grinds on against the backdrop of multiple civilian […]

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WHO seeks $135 million to defeat mpox

“Responding to this complex outbreak requires a comprehensive and coordinated international response,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told Member States, as cases spread beyond Africa to Europe and Asia. The briefing was held just over a week after he declared that mpox was a public health emergency of international concern. New mpox virus strain Tedros […]

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