The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

WHO, measles and obesity among health emergencies in 2019

2019-12-29T16:47:07.139Z


Alcohol, superbugs, smoking and Ebola continue to kill (ANSA)


On the planet now 2.3 billion people are overweight or obese, the number of smokers drops at a low rate, alcohol continues to kill 3 million people a year and 50 million elderly people live with a form of dementia: this is the portrait of the global population, on the threshold of the second decade of the 21st century outlined by the World Health Organization (WHO), which in 2019 focused its attention on the main health emergencies, such as measles and malaria.

If many of the problems reported by the WHO in the year that is about to end are related to lifestyles, such as poor nutrition and lack of physical activity, many others concern battles that have marked a retreat. Like the one against measles, whose global cases have more than tripled compared to 2018. There is also no good news on the war against superbugs: 700,000 people die every year from antibiotic-resistant infections. The number of people exposed to excessive heat increases every year at a rate of 125 million.

The good news of 2019 comes from vaccines: there is a struggle to eliminate rubella, which if contracted by pregnant women causes congenital defects in fetuses and that is preventable with the vaccine; against malaria the first large-scale vaccination has started in Malawi Ghana and Kenya with the aim of reaching 360 thousand children a year; the Ebola virus continues to kill in the Congo, but thanks to vaccine and experimental therapies, mortality is lower than the previous epidemic in West Africa.

Source: ansa

All life articles on 2019-12-29

You may like

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.