'United Nations agencies like the World Health Organization are constantly painted in a bad light by the more extreme conservative elements of the Catholic Church here in the Philippines.'

ANTI-RH fundamentalists appear to be schizophrenic about international scientific bodies and their role in assessing evidence on biological processes and their effects on health.

This was apparent during the legislative debates as well as in the third RH hearing of the Supreme Court last week.

On the one hand they repeatedly cited a World Health Organization (WHO) body, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), to warn about the harmful effects of contraceptives. On the other, they constantly downplayed WHO opinions about the safety and efficacy of contraceptive devices and pills.

The likely explanation for such confusion is a lack of knowledge concerning the origins, history, and roles of international agencies in the conduct of international activities.

WHO for example is a specialized agency of the United Nations with technical authority on international health matters. While it functions as a part of the United Nations System, as an intergovernmental agency, WHO has a separate charter with its own set of governing bodies.

The World Health Assembly that meets annually in Geneva is WHO's highest governing body. It is composed of the Ministers of Health or their representatives of the organization's more than 190 Member States. The Assembly exercises its authority through an Executive Board comprising 36 public health or biomedical experts nominated on a rotating basis by the Member States themselves.

Day to day operations are carried out by a Secretariat of technical and health management experts supported by general service staff stationed at headquarters in Geneva, the six Regional Offices, and at country offices.

The main source of WHO's technical strength is its access to international technical bodies (such as IARC) and the health expertise of its Member States' health authorities as well as their academic and science institutions in all areas relevant to its mandate.

From time to time and for special purposes, WHO convenes expert panels drawn from the global scientific community to supplement in-house capacities. Thus, WHO opinions on specific issues are distillations of the consensus of such bodies and reflect views from a broad range of public, biomedical, social, and other highly specialized disciplines.

WHO's regular budget is funded through assessed contributions of Member States pro-rated according to the member's population and level of socio-economic development. Some countries also make contributions to special extra-budgetary programs. The funding arrangements render it improbable that financial pressure can be brought to bear on its scientific decision making processes.

Although agencies like WHO are sensitive to political and even religious sensibilities of its Member States, its structure and manner of working make it highly unlikely that its conclusions can be biased in favor of any one member or group of members.

The Organization's position on reproductive health for example has been consistent with all the global consensus-driven declarations particularly the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994 where the term reproductive health was first introduced.

The Vatican's status in the World Health Assembly is that of "observer" - meaning it has no vote but can participate in debates and discussions. However, it influences international health policy through its political leverage in countries with predominantly Catholic populations. Historically, the Vatican strongly resisted incorporating population and family planning issues in the Organization's agenda from its inception in 1947. Nevertheless, the Vatican supports WHO initiatives in other areas such as addressing children's health problems in poor countries.

The WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific was established here in Manila in 1949. The majority of its general service staff is Filipino. A number of Filipino health experts have served in high-ranking technical and administrative posts in the Secretariat here, in other Regional Offices, and in Geneva. Additionally, Filipinos have participated extensively in special panels, technical working groups, and scientific working groups - making significant contributions to WHO achievements such as the global eradication of smallpox and the more recent eradication of polio in the Western Pacific.

It is unfortunate that United Nations agencies like the World Health Organization are constantly painted in a bad light by the more extreme conservative elements of the Catholic Church here in the Philippines. What is even more regrettable is that, as a result, even some educated Filipinos are not informed about the important role that agencies such as WHO, UNFPA, and UNICEF play to improve health conditions in developing countries like the Philippines.

Hopefully, as the heated debates on reproductive health are gradually replaced by more rational sober discussions on universal health care for all Filipinos, there will be broader cooperation between secular health institutions and the more enlightened elements of the Catholic Church in the Philippines.

source: www.malaya.com.ph

The United Kingdom recently announced that it will donate £10 million to the United Nation's World Health Organization to vaccinate more than 6 million people in response to recent outbreaks of poliovirus in Somalia and Kenya.

"While the world has almost eradicated polio, this new outbreak shows that we cannot rest until we have stamped it out completely," U.K. International Development Secretary Justine Greening said.

The outbreak in Somalia is its first since 2007; Kenya's outbreak is its first since 2011. The U.N. said in a statement that if the disease is not controlled, it can become an epidemic across East Africa, where many rates of polio vaccination are extremely low.

"There is a very real risk that this outbreak could quickly become a problem across the entire region," Greening said. "We must act now to stop this deadly and debilitating disease from spreading further."

The contribution from the U.K. will fund the immunization of 6.1 million people at the highest risk of infection in Somalia, northern Kenya and other countries in the region. Confirmed cases of the disease were reported in Mogasdishu, Somalia and the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya in May.

There is no cure for the disease, but it is preventable through immunization.

source: vaccinenewsdaily.com

The Health Ministry is set to announce in the coming days that it is embarking on an emergency inoculation program to protect some 200,000 children from polio. A report on Channel 10 Tuesday night said that doctors have found hundreds of people carrying the disease in recent days, especially in the south.

If the government approves the program, inoculations could begin as soon as next week. Inoculations will most likely be given at Tipat Halav (Mother and Child Wellness) clinics, and will be offered free or at low cost.

Israeli children have been inoculated against polio for generations, but the inoculation, whole preventing them from getting the disease, did not stop them from being carriers. As a result, children with weaker immune systems could be susceptible to the disease, even if they received inoculations. A new version of polio vaccine eliminates the disease from the body altogether, preventing it from being spread altogether.

The Channel 10 report said that the Health Ministry had ordered 500,000 doses of the new vaccine, in the event that polio was found in large amounts in other parts of the country. Professor Moti Ravid, director of Maayanei Hayeshua hospital in Bnei Brak, said that it was very possible that some children had contracted polio without even realizing it. "One out of every 100 polio patients is stricken with paralysis, partially or fully," he said. "There may be some children out there who are ill, with doctors attributing their problems to something else."

Polio has been found in recent months in several places in southern Israel. In May, the virus was found in sewage from the Bedouin city of Rahat. Later, samples were found in sewage in Beersheva, Ashdod, and Tel Aviv. Experts said that the outbreak seemed to be centered on Rahat, and it may have spread from there. According to a leading expert on Islam, Daniel Pipes, polio is making a major comeback among Muslims.

In 2003, Ibrahim Datti Ahmed, president of the Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria and a physician, said that the vaccination program in his country was part of a Western conspiracy to render Muslim children infertile. His call for an end to the polio immunization campaign touched a nerve and spread to other Muslim religious leaders in Nigeria, causing the vaccination process to slow down and incidences of the disease to pick up. "From Nigeria, this dual phenomenon of conspiracy theory and re-appearance of the disease then expanded to Muslims internationally," wrote Pipes, who has been following the resurgence of the disease.

"So closely connected have Islam and polio become that the Muslim-only pilgrimage to Mecca became a major mechanism of transmitting the disease to faraway places like Indonesia," Pipes wrote.

MK Shuli Mualem (Bayit Yehudi), deputy head of the Health Committee, called on the Ministry to increase its contacts with the population, and to set a goal of inoculating as many people – especially children – as soon as possible.

source: www.israelnationalnews.com

The World Health Organization has confirmed Colombia as the first country in the world having eliminated Onchocerciasis (river blindness), a neglected tropical disease which infects approximately 37 million people in 35 countries worldwide.

The World Health Organization announced at a meeting in Bogotá on July 29 that, after applying during 12 years (1996-2007) an anti-parasitic treatment to the residents of the community of Naicioná, Colombia has managed to completely eliminate the tropical disease caused by the bacterium carried by a parasite and transmitted by the bite of a black fly that abounds in tropical rivers.

Naicioná is a small village of 1,400 inhabitants in southwestern Colombia. This was the location of the last outbreak in the country of Onchocerciasis, a disease prevalent in sub-Saharan Africa, but also common in Brazil, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico and Venezuela.

Onchocerciasis, also known as "river blindness", is a disease caused by the infection of Onchocerca volvulus, a parasitic nematode (a roundworm) (1, see below). The parasite is transmitted to humans through the bite of a black fly of the genus Simulium.

The nematode carries an endosymbiont bacterium (2) known as Wolbachia pipientis. The larva of the nematode spreads within the body of the host, and when the worm dies, the bacteria are released, triggering an immune response causing skin irritation, and can trigger a severe inflammatory response in eye tissues causing blindness.

Onchocerciasis is second only to trachoma (3) as an infectious cause of blindness in the world. Currently, more than 500,000 people are visually impaired and 270,000 people are blind as a result of onchocerciasis infections.

The first time the disease was detected in Colombia was in 1965 when a 39-year-old man was slowly losing his vision. Since then, people engaged in gold mining in the Chuare River region, where the Naicioná community is located, were affected with the same problem.

In 1996, a campaign started in Naicioná, which was identified as the focus of the disease, led by Colombia's National Institute of Health with the collaboration of international researchers of the Carter Center that coordinates the Programme for Onchocerciasis Elimination in the Americas (OEPA).

The researchers visited the sick twice a year to supply an anti-parasitic drug ("Ivermectin") donated by Merck. The campaign ended in 2006 when it was shown that the transmission of the parasite had stopped and the small population of Naicioná went into a phase of epidemiological surveillance.

Former US President Jimmy Carter was the guest of honor at the ceremony in which WHO and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) presented to President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia, the document certifying the eradication of "river blindness".

Ecuador is expected to become the second country in the world to eradicate river blindness. No new cases have been reported in this country since 2009. Mexico and Guatemala have more recently halted the cycle of river blindness transmission. The program is focusing now on the remaining endemic areas of Brazil and Venezuela.

1. Nematodes are roundworms living in various environments including soil, water or inside other organisms. About 28,000 species have been described of which about 16,000 are parasitic.
2. An endosymbiont is any organism that lives within the body or cells of another organism without affecting its survival.
3. An infectious disease caused by the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis.

source: www.digitaljournal.com

Vietnam has joined other eight Western Pacific countries in efforts to eliminate hepatitis in response to the World Hepatitis Day on Sunday following a commitment of the World Health Organization (WHO) Western Pacific Region, state-run Vietnam News Agency reported Sunday.

Accordingly, the country aims to reduce Hepatitis B infection among children to under 2 percent in line with the goal set by WHO.

Vietnam is among nine countries in the Western Pacific region facing serious threat from viral hepatitis, a silent disease, but causing serious impact on public health, said the report.

However, in recent years, Vietnam has made encouraging achievements in the prevention of this disease. More than 50 percent of newborn babies were vaccinated against Hepatitis B over the past decade, thus remarkably reducing the rate of infection. No Hepatitis A and E epidemics broke out during the past 30 years.

In 2012, Vietnam for the first time launched a campaign"All people join hands to beat hepatitis"in response to the appeal of WHO. The campaign has brought about encouraging results: nearly 3 million people have received medical checks and tests for the viral hepatitis, helping detecting hundreds of thousands of cases of Hepatitis virus B and Hepatitis C infections as well as primary liver cancer.

To assist with the care and treatment of patients with viral Hepatitis B and C, the Vietnam Association for the Study of Liver Diseases has developed the "Guidelines for liver disease treatment " for all medical establishments nationwide. At the same time, it has also collaborated with the Vietnam Farmers'Association to launch a contest on viral hepatitis.

To eliminate Hepatitis B and lower the rate of infection among children to under 2 percent, the health sector plans to strengthen education campaigns to raise people's awareness on the disease and measures to prevent transmission.

Expert from the WHO have warned that primary liver cancer caused by viral Hepatitis B and C is increasing in Vietnam, while most patients only come to hospital in the late period, leading to difficulties in treatments.

According to WHO, 2 billion people worldwide are infected with Hepatitis B, 200 million people with Hepatitis C, and each year, more than 1 million people die from hepatitis of all types. In the world, one in every 12 people is infected with viral hepatitis.

source: news.xinhuanet.com

India's Hepatitis burden is rising due to the use of infected injections and unsterilised medical equipment as well as unsafe blood transfusions. In India, nearly two-thirds of the injections being used are unsafe, posing health hazards for the recipients. Unhygienic use of needles in acupuncture and tattooing also has a significant role in spreading hepatitis, according to experts. There are five main Hepatitis viruses, referred to as types A, B, C, D and E. Hepatitis A and E are typically caused by ingestion of contaminated food or water. Hepatitis B, C and D usually occurs as a result of parenteral contact with infected body fluids. Hepatitis B is also transmitted by sexual contact.

'Hepatitis B (HBV) and Hepatitis C (HCV) infections are silent diseases that remain asymptomatic for decades. Due to lower awareness, more than 80 percent HCV patients and over 60 percent patients with HBV are diagnosed at a stage when the disease is irreversible,' Anil Arora, chairman and head of the Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, New Delhi said. Ajay Kumar, senior consultant gasteroenterology Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals told IANS: 'Transmission of Hepatitis through infected syringes and blood is a significant problem in India.' 'Most patients in India get the Hepatitis B and C forms in childhood either through mother to child transmission or contact with other siblings,' he said adding, many times after being infected the problem becomes chronic and they become permanent carriers of the virus.

He added that there was much need to organize a countrywide education campaign among health workers, patients and the community, especially in the rural areas. Anupam Sibal group medical director and senior gasteroenterologist at Apollo, who specialises in paediatric Hepatitis, said immunisation against the disease is an effective prevention method. Under the Universal Immunization Programme (UIP), the government provides Hepatitis B vaccine and the operational cost of vaccination to states and union territories for preventing Hepatitis B infection. Since April 2005, the government has also introduced auto-disabled (AD) syringes for all vaccinations under UIP in all states. AD syringes are single use, self-locking syringes that cannot be used more than once.

This prevents misuse and contamination and cross- infection through repeated use of unsterile injection or equipment. Routine screening of blood units for Hepatitis B and C has been made mandatory for all blood banks to detect and discard contaminated blood units, a senior health ministry official said. Hepatitis viruses are estimated to be among the top 10 causes of death in India. According to the World Health Organization, 240 million people globally are chronically infected with Hepatitis B and around 150 million are chronically infected with Hepatitis C.

Approximately 500 million people worldwide are living with either hepatitis B or hepatitis C. This means 1 in 12 people suffer from this deadly disease. As for Hepatitis C, one out of every 100 in India may be chronically infected by the virus and most among these 12 million people do not know they are infected. According to government figures, prevalence of Hepatitis C has been observed to be relatively higher in Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram.

Interestingly, several studies conducted in these states have highlighted different risk factors which are believed to have led to the relatively higher prevalence of the condition. 'Hepatitis C usually affects people in the age group of 20 to 60 years while Hepatitis B is most common in the age groups 10 to 60 years,' Kaushal Madan, senior consultant Hepatologist and Gastroenterologist, Medanta – The Medicity Hospital, Gurgaon said.

source: health.india.com

Despite its high current death rate, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) that emerged in Saudi Arabia last year is unlikely to cause a SARS-like epidemic because it is not spreading as easily, scientists said on Friday.

In the fullest clinical analysis yet of the new virus, British and Saudi researchers said that while there are many similarities between MERS and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) - which emerged in China in 2002 and killed around 800 people worldwide - there are also important differences.

The MERS coronavirus, which can cause coughing, fever and pneumonia, emerged last year and has spread from the Gulf to France, Germany, Italy, Tunisia and Britain. The World Health Organisation (WHO) puts the latest global toll at 45 deaths from 90 laboratory-confirmed cases.

The WHO issued its travel guidance on Thursday for pilgrims going to the annual haj in Saudi Arabia and said the health risk posed by the MERS virus was "very low".

Ali Zumla, a professor of infectious diseases and international health at University College London, said the evidence from his study suggested a large MERS epidemic with many hundreds of deaths was unlikely.

"It is very unlikely any epidemic will ensue. The public needs to be reassured," he told Reuters. "MERS is unlikely to spread as rapidly, and therefore also unlikely to kill as many people (as SARS)."

He noted that MERS was first identified 15 months ago and there have been 90 cases reported so far. SARS, spread far more rapidly, infecting more than 8,000 people between November 2002 and July 2003.

MILDER CASES POSSIBLY MISSED

An earlier study of how the MERS virus infects people found that the receptors it binds to are common in the lungs and lower respiratory tract and but not in the nose, throat and upper respiratory tract. Some experts think this is why MERS is not currently spreading easily from one person to another.

The study found that MERS killed around 60 percent of the patients it infected who also had other underlying illness such as diabetes and heart disease.

But Ziad Memish, Saudi Arabia's deputy public health minister, who led the research, said this high death rate "is probably spurious due to the fact that we are only picking up severe cases and missing a significant number of milder or asymptomatic cases".

"So far there is little to indicate that MERS will follow a similar path to SARS," he said.

The vast majority of MERS cases have been in Saudi Arabia or linked to people who contracted the virus there.

The new research, published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal, is the largest case series to date and included 47 cases of confirmed MERS infections from Saudi Arabia between Sept 1, 2012, and June 15, 2013.

By combining clinical records, laboratory results, and imaging findings with demographic data, the researchers found a trend of older patients, more men, and patients with underlying medical conditions who succumb to the disease.

As with SARS, MERS patients had a wide spectrum of symptoms. Most of those admitted to hospital had fever, chills, cough, shortness of breath and muscle pain. A quarter also had gastrointestinal symptoms, including diarrhoea and vomiting.

But unlike with SARS, most MERS cases were in people with underlying chronic medical conditions including diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease and chronic renal disease.

A study by French researchers last month said MERS had not reached pandemic potential and may just die out.

source:  www.thestar.com.my

Only one-third of the world's countries have national strategies for viral hepatitis, the United Nations health agency today said urging Governments to scale up measures to tackle this 'silent epidemic,' in particular the five types that, over time, cause chronic and debilitating illnesses.

"The fact that many hepatitis B and C infections are silent, causing no symptoms until there is severe damage to the liver, points to the urgent need for universal access to immunization, screening, diagnosis and antiviral therapy," UN World Health Organization (WHO) Assistant Director-General for Health Security and the Environment, Dr. Keiji Fukuda, said ahead of World Hepatitis Day.

Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver, most commonly caused by a viral infection. There are five main hepatitis viruses, referred to as types A, B, C, D and E. These five types are of greatest concern, WHO said, because of the burden of illness and death they cause and the potential for outbreaks and epidemic spread. These severe infections lead to 1.4 million deaths every year.

Hepatitis A and E are food and water borne infections, while Hepatitis B, C, and D are spread by infected body fluids including blood, by sexual contact, mother-to-child transmission during birth, or by contaminated medical equipment.

The World Health Assembly – the decision-making body of WHO – designated 28 July as World Hepatitis Day. The Day serves to promote greater understanding of hepatitis as a global public health problem and to stimulate the strengthening of preventive and control measures against infection in countries throughout the world.

Thirty-seven per cent of countries surveyed have national strategies for viral hepatitis, and more work is needed in treating hepatitis, the UN agency announced releasing its first-ever country hepatitis survey. Covering 126 countries, the Global policy report on the prevention and control of viral hepatitis in WHO member States identifies successes as well as gaps at country level in the implementation of four priority areas: raising awareness, evidence-based data for action, prevention of transmission, and screening, care and treatment.

The findings show that while 82 per cent of the countries have established hepatitis surveillance programmes, only half of them include the monitoring of chronic hepatitis B and C, which are responsible for most severe illnesses and deaths.

"Many of the measures needed to prevent the spread of viral hepatitis disease can be put in place right now, and doing so will offset the heavy economic costs of treating and hospitalizing patients in future," said Dr. Sylvie Briand, Director of Pandemic and Epidemic Diseases at WHO.

"The findings underline the important work that is being done by Governments to halt hepatitis through the implementation of WHO recommended policies and actions," Dr. Briand added.

In addition, WHO has been working on developing networks and is exploring with international funding agencies avenues that could allow hepatitis to be included in their current programme of activities, the UN agency said in its statement.

In June 2013, WHO launched the Global Hepatitis Network, and one of its aims is to support countries with planning and implementation of viral hepatitis plans and programmes.

WHO is currently developing new hepatitis C screening, care and treatment guidelines, which will provide recommendations on seven key areas such as testing approaches; behavioural interventions (alcohol reduction); non-invasive assessment of liver fibrosis; and the selection of hepatitis C drug combinations.

"New, more effective medicines to prevent the progression of chronic hepatitis B and C are in the pipeline," said Dr. Stefan Wiktor, team lead in WHO's Global Hepatitis Programme. "However, these will be expensive and therapy will require monitoring with sophisticated laboratory tests. To cure and reduce the spread of these viruses, medicines must become more accessible."

source:  www.un.org