Health

Midwives can make the difference between life and death for hundreds of thousands of women every year, the United Nations population agency affirmed today, recognizing their crucial role in improving maternal health, family planning and assisting during humanitarian emergencies.

With the globally agreed target of reversing the incidence rate of malaria by 2015 now in sight, top United Nations officials today urged the international community to stay committed to protecting people from this preventable disease and to scale up key interventions such as the provision of insecticide-treated mosquito nets.

United Nations and international health experts will travel to China later this week at Beijing’s invitation for a week-long joint assessment of the deadly H7N9 bird influenza outbreak that has so far infected 63 people, 14 of them fatally.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) launched a global action initiative Friday to save up to two million children every year from deaths caused by pneumonia and diarrhoea by the year of 2025.

United Nations representatives and international donors today wrapped up discussions on how to finance an estimated $87 billion needed by the UN-backed Global Fund to bring under control the global threat posed by HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria during the 2014-2016 period.

The dangers posed by air pollution are far larger than previously thought, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) has announced.

The disparities in access to HIV/AIDS treatment across the world shed light on the need to overcome inequality and exclusion, a senior United Nations official stressed today, calling on countries to use efforts to eliminate this disease as a way to combat social injustice.

Chemicals in household and industrial products that disrupt the human hormone system are linked to high global rates of breast, ovarian, prostate, testicular and thyroid cancers, warns a report released today by the UN Environment Programme and the World Health Organization.

Dengue, leprosy, river blindness and guinea-worm disease are among 17 neglected tropical diseases now targeted by a new global strategy, supported by worldwide partners.

Nigeria and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria signed five grant agreements today worth a total of US $335 million to support programs that will help significantly expand prevention and treatment of HIV and tuberculosis in Africa’s most populous country.