NEW YORK, USA, 4 February 2011 – At a joint meeting of the Executive Boards of UNICEF and four other UN agencies, Executive Director Anthony Lake this morning called for a global commitment to reaching the poorest and most disadvantaged communities in order to reduce...
Delhi's high court has ordered the capital's government to build shelters for destitute pregnant women so they can receive care when giving birth. It is treating maternal mortality as a human rights violation. In January, Shanti Devi, a woman living below the poverty line, died after...
World Cancer Day is marked on February 4 to raise awareness of cancer and to encourage its prevention, detection, and treatment. It is led by the International Union against Cancer, a global consortium of more than 350 cancer-fighting organizations in over 100 countries. World Cancer Day...
The public health community has known for a long time that vaccines are one of the best investments in health. A few doses early in life can protect a child for a lifetime. Polio, which has declined by 99 percent over the past 20 years,...
Sustained high vaccination coverage is key to preventing deaths from measles. Despite the availability of a vaccine, measles remains an important killer of children worldwide, particularly in less-developed regions where vaccination coverage is limited. A team of researchers, led by scientists at the Johns Hopkins...
Child vaccines got a double dose of comedy last night when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert interviewed Bill Gates and Dr. Paul Offit on their back-to-back shows. In the first interview, Stewart talked to Gates about the value of investments in vaccines, and focused in...
For the last ten years, I have seen thousands of children cry after being pricked by needle for a vaccination against measles –a deadly disease that is preventable by one quick, albeit painful, shot. I witnessed it again this week in northern Nigeria, as the country...
The gap between the number of Aboriginal children and non-Aboriginal children being treated in hospital for pneumonia in Australia has fallen by a third in a decade. In the mid 1990's 15 Aboriginal children for every one non-Aboriginal child were treated in hospital for pneumonia. In the...
I just returned from the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland. More than 2,500 business, civil society, religious, governmental and youth leaders, from "tech pioneers" to "young global leaders" to business tycoons. Bill Gates and Bono dropped by, too many prime ministers to...
In a paper published in the January issue of the journal Economics and Human Biology, a team of applied economists including William A. Masters, a professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, suggests a new approach to monitoring the...
We all have a role to play in ending pneumonia deaths by 2030
