Geneva-27 March 2008-Too often the sacrifices of people working in global public health go unrecognized, but not in this case. The World Health Organization (WHO) welcomes the announcement that the Government of Japan is awarding the first Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize for service to global public health.


The two recipients of the prize are Brian Greenwood, Professor of Clinical Tropical Medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and distinguished innovator in malaria research; and Miriam K. Were, an AIDS specialist performing ground-breaking community-based work in East Africa.

laboratory tests

25 April: GENEVA -- When millions of HIV-infected people in poor countries began receiving advanced drug therapies, critics worried that patient care would suffer because few high tech laboratories were available to guide treatments. But according to a study being published in Lancet Friday, 25 April, these concerns are as yet unfounded. In fact, the study indicates that when clinicians use simple physical signs of deteriorating health -- such as weight loss or fever -- these doctors can provide therapies almost as effective those relying on the most advanced laboratory analysis.

Washington DC /Geneva – Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) has been recorded at the highest rates ever, according to a new World Health Organization (WHO) report that presents findings from the largest survey to date on the scale of drug resistance in tuberculosis.


The report, Anti-Tuberculosis Drug Resistance in the World, is based on information collected between 2002 and 2006 on 90 000 TB patients in 81 countries. It also found that extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB), a virtually untreatable form of the respiratory disease, has been recorded in 45 countries.


The report also found a link between HIV infection and MDR-TB. Surveys in Latvia and Donetsk, Ukraine found nearly twice the level of MDR-TB among TB patients living with HIV compared with TB patients without HIV.

Geneva/Baghdad - A large national household survey conducted by the Iraqi government and the World Health Organization estimates that 151 000 Iraqis died from violence between March 2003 and June 2006.

The findings, published today on the web site of the New England Journal of Medicine, are based on information collected during a wider survey of family health in Iraq, designed to provide a basis for the Iraqi government to develop and update health policies and plan services.

The estimate is based on interviews conducted in 9345 households in nearly 1000 neighbourhoods and villages across Iraq. The researchers emphasize that despite the large size of the study, the uncertainty inherent in calculating such estimates led them to conclude that the number of Iraqis who died from violence during that period lies between 104 000 and 223 000. 

What is a museum? It is that tedious and boring place where we are told to admire a "fantastic" collection that most of the time we don't even understand what we are looking at. Wow, how interesting! It is a place where our teachers, our parents or our companions bring us to acknowledge, when all we would want is something totally different, like a football match on television. This is a common thought among people, among the non scholars, because museums in the past have been dead places.

Fortunately museums have come to understand, in the last 10 years or so, that having a great collection was not "that big of a deal" to attract the public. People wanted something more thrilling and more comprehensive with which to understand the great collections. It is obvious that a museum will always have at its center the collection. What they are trying to do now is to become the center of knowledge and culture, by using all means; adding laboratories along with new technologies, making exciting events and so on.

WHO/Europe contributed to "Climate change 2007" on health impacts and public health responses.
Read the key messages on health.


Key health messages of the Fourth Assessment Report of the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC)http://www.euro.who.int/[..]

The IPCC's Fourth Assessment is completed with the release of the Synthesis Report in November 2007. The Fourth Assessment identifies the impact on human health as one of the most important effects of the changing climate. WHO/Europe has contributed as author to the Assessment.

Africa leads a strong decline in global measles deaths.

Measles deaths in Africa fell by 91% between 2000 and 2006, from an estimated 396 000 to 36 000, reaching the United Nations 2010 goal to cut measles deaths by 90% four years early. The spectacular gains achieved in Africa helped generate a strong decline in global measles deaths, which fell 68% worldwide – from an estimated 757 000 to 242 000 – during this period.

The progress was announced today by the founding partners of the Measles Initiative: the American Red Cross, UNICEF, the United Nations Foundation, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO). The data will be published in the November 30th editions of WHO’s Weekly Epidemiological Record and CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims

18 November 2007 ¦ Geneva -- Road crashes kill 1.2 million people every year and injure or disable as many as 50 million more. They are the leading cause of death among young people between 10 and 24 years. The World Day of Remembrance - the third Sunday of November each year - draws attention to the devastating consequences of these deaths and the need for action.

This year a number of events are being planned by victims' associations and other groups, including among others:

In various countries, through an activity called "Remember and Reflect", candles will be lit in public spaces and private homes across many continents in honour of those killed. As the light vanishes on one continent, it will be kindled on another. 

On the 23rd of October 2007 international researchers, politicians and entrepreneurs coming from United States, Canada, Korea, India and New Zealand were all gathered in Miki, a small Japanese town that houses the National Research Institute of Earth Science and Disaster Prevention, the most important anti-seismic laboratory, where a seven-storey building – 23.5 meters of height – survived Kobe’s earthquake simulation. For the first time since 1995, when a devastating earthquake, known as “Great Haushin-Awaji”, shaked an entire village in Kobe and caused nearly six thousand victims, a wooden structure successfully survived such a blast.

Yoshimitsu Okada, one of the leading ant-seismic experts, applauded Italy’s project, called “SOFIE”, claiming that it is an innovation destined to change worldwide building techniques.
SOFIE is the result of a five-year research run by IVALSA (Trees and Timber Institute) of Italy’s National Research Council (CNR).
A really innovative system, if we take into account the fact that international laws intedict to raise wooden buildings with more than 7.5 meters of height on seismic areas.

In the 21 worst-affected countries, close to 5% of death and disease is caused by indoor air pollution, according to new estimates published by the World Health Organization (WHO).

The first-ever country-by-country estimates of the burden of disease due to indoor air pollution highlight the heavy toll solid fuel use takes on the health and well-being of people around the world.. The countries most affected are Afghanistan, Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Pakistan, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo and Uganda.

In 11 countries - Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan and the United Republic of Tanzania - indoor air pollution is to blame for a total of 1.2 million deaths a year. Globally, reliance on solid fuels is one of the ten most important threats to public health.