Milan, Italy (PANA) - FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva has stressed the critical need to transform food systems to ensure healthy diets and good nutrition for all. Full text...

Antananarivo, Madagascar (PANA) - This year plague came early to Madagascar and spread quickly. When it began to move out from the areas where it traditionally occurs, people became increasingly alarmed – both within the island nation and in neighbouring territories and countries. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) – While progress has been made in response to the plague outbreak in Madagascar, and the number of suspected new cases continues to decline, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that sustaining operations through the remainder of the plague season will be critical as there is still a risk of potential further spread of the disease. Full text...

Freetown, Sierra Leone (PANA) - The UK government on Thursday completed a US$ 5 million laboratory project for Sierra Leone’s health system, including the construction of three laboratories and the training of staff to run them. Full text...

London, UK (PANA) - Nearly one million children a year are dying from pneumonia even though it can be treated with antibiotics costing as little as 30 British pence, Save the Children, an independent child rights organisation, said on Thursday. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) – A record 3 million people obtained treatment for hepatitis C over the past two years, and 2.8 million more people embarked on lifelong treatment for hepatitis B in 2016, the United Nations health agency reported on Tuesday, the eve of the World Hepatitis Summit in Brazil, highlighting increasing momentum in the global response to the viral disease. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) – Progress has not been fast enough over the past year to reach global and regional targets on stopping the spread of tuberculosis (TB), or to make real headway in closing persistent gaps in TB care and prevention, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Monday. Full text...

Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) –The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that South Africa is at high risk of the “black death” plague. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) – Annual deaths from measles have dropped below 100,000 last year for the first time, United Nations and other international agencies reported on Thursday, as they warned, however, that the world is still far from reaching goals on eliminating the disease. Full text...

Niamey, Niger (PANA) - The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) annual meeting on health planning opened Thursday in Niamey, under the theme: "Continuing and strengthening dialogue and collaboration on health planning and monitoring and evaluation mechanisms". Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) – Despite progress towards global eradication of polio, sustained commitment is needed to overcome the final hurdle and stamp out the disease once and for all, the United Nations health agency said on Tuesday, the World Polio Day. Full text...

Kampala, Uganda (PANA) - Following the confirmation of a case of Marburg Virus Disease (MVD) in Kween district of eastern Uganda by the country’s Ministry of Health and the activation of the National Response Team, the World Health Organization (WHO) Rapid Response team from the country office was able to reach the epicentre within 48 hours and is currently supporting national and district authorities to contain the outbreak. Full text...

Kigali, Rwanda (PANA) - Rwanda's Ministry of Health on Monday issued a public alert on Marburg hemorrhagic fever asking the population to remain vigilant as government steps up measures to prevent the outbreak of the deadly virus in the country. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) - The World Health Organisation (WHO) has rescined the appointment of Zimabean President Robert Mugabe as its Goodwill Ambnassador for Non-Communicable Diseases (NDCs). Full text...

London, UK (PANA) - Pollution is a major cause of premature death, disability, and disease around the world, a new report in the medical journal Lancet has said, stressing that most health impacts are on people living in low- and middle-income countries. Full text...

Montevideo, Uruguay (PANA) – Global leaders have pledged to take bold action to reduce suffering from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), which include the world's leading killers – heart and lung diseases, cancers and diabetes – the United Nations health agency reported on Thursday. Full text...

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (PANA) - At least 11 people have died of dengue fever in Burkina Faso since the beginning of this year, the government said on Thursday as it planned a targeted space spraying operation from 23 to 30 October. Full text...

New York, USA (PANA) – Every day in 2016, 15,000 children died before their fifth birthday, 46 per cent of them – or 7,000 babies – died in the first 28 days of life, according to a new UN report. Full text...

Abuja, Nigeria (PANA) – The Nigerian goverment has launched a 10-day campaign launched to immunize nearly 874,000 people against yellow fever in the states of Kwara and Kogi, according to the United Nations health agency. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) - Global humanitarian organization, Rotary International, is giving US$49.5 million in grants to support polio immunization and surveillance activities in nine countries, among them Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. Full text...

Guadalajara, Mexico (PANA) – Stressing the damaging impact on poor rural communities in Africa and South-East Asia of animal tuberculosis’ (bovine TB) transmission to humans, United Nations health experts have launched the first-ever roadmap to combat the so-called zoonotic TB. Full text...

Monrovia, Liberia (PANA) - Results from PREVAIL I, a large Ebola vaccine study that enrolled more than a thousand Liberians in Monrovia during the first few months of 2015, were published on Thursday, October 12, in the issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. Full text...

Port-Louis, Mauritius (PANA) - Mauritius has taken all precautionary and control measures at its air and sea ports, and reinforced surveillance at all levels in a bid to prevent transmission of pneumonic plague which is currently affecting the near-by island of Madagascar. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) – Despite a 50 per cent drop in AIDS-related deaths since the peak of the epidemic, new HIV infection declines among adults are lagging, prompting the United Nations to launch a 10-point plan that lays out immediate, concrete steps countries can take to accelerate progress. Full text...

London, UK (PANA) - The number of obese children and adolescents (aged five to 19 years) worldwide has risen tenfold in the past four decades and if current trends continue, more children and adolescents will be obese than moderately or severely underweight by 2022, according to a new study led by Imperial College London and WHO. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) – People spend a large proportion of time at work, where experiences there factor into their overall wellbeing, the United Nations said on World Mental Health Day, noting that depression and anxiety disorders are common mental disorders that have an impact on our ability to work, and to work productively. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) – The United Nations health agency on Tuesday announced the establishment of a high-level global commission on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) to identify innovative ways to curb the world’s biggest causes of death and extend life expectancy for millions of people. Full text...

Freetown, Sierra Leone (PANA) - Health based civil society groups In Sierra Leone have called on people to check their mental status regularly and fight off the stigma attached to such checkups. Full text...

Cape Town, South Africa (PANA) – South African jazz legend, Hugh Masekela, has called for privacy after confirming that he will no longer be performing after being diagnosed with aggressive prostrate cancer. Full text...

Accra, Ghana (PANA) – The government of Ghana should ensure adequate funding for mental health services in the country, as a crucial step to eliminating the widespread practice of shackling and other abuses against people with psycho-social disabilities, a coalition of nongovernmental groups said on Monday. Full text...

Lusaka, Zambia (PANA) – The Zambian Ministry of Health has placed the capital city, Lusaka, on high alert following an increase in the number of cholera cases. Full text...

Antananarivo, Madagascar (PANA) – The United Nations health agency is rapidly scaling up response to a plague outbreak in Madagascar that has spread to the capital and port towns, infecting more than 100 people in just a few weeks. Full text...

Monrovia, Liberia, October 6 (PANA) – Liberia and the United States have cut sod to construct the National Public Health Institute of Liberia (NPHL), national reference and Regional Laboratory buildings in Congo Town, outside Monrovia. Full text...

Freetown, Sierra Leone (PANA) - The Sierra Leonean Ministry of Health and Sanitation has started the second round of the Oral Cholera Vaccination for 25 communities that were affected by the 14 August mudslide. Full text...

Nairobi, Kenya (PANA) – A nationwide malaria outbreak has claimed the lives of 30 people, mostly children, in the dry and remote regions of Kenya and along the coastal region, top government officials said Thursday. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) – An estimated 41 million children under five years old are obese or overweight, United Nations health experts warned on Wednesday, launching new guidelines to tackle what they call a global epidemic. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) – People living with HIV who experience high levels of stigma are more than twice as likely to delay enrolment into care than people who do not perceive such stigma, a United Nations report released on Tuesday reveals. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) - An ambitious new strategy to reduce deaths from cholera by 90% by 2030 will be launched Wednesday by the Global Task Force on Cholera Control (GTFCC), a diverse network of more than 50 UN and international agencies, academic institutions, and NGOs that support countries affected by the disease, the UN health agency announced Tuesday. Full text...

Libreville, Gabon (PANA) - The Chinese floating hospital ship, "the Arch of Peace", with a crew of more than 600 doctors and nurses, Monday began consultations and free treatments to approximately 2,000 patients enrolled in local hospital facilities in Libreville, the Gabone capital. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) - On the International Day of Older Persons which falls on Sunday, the United Nations is urging the world to tap into the often overlooked contributions of older persons, and calling for integrated care to improve well being and ensure they have the opportunity to contribute to development. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) – The suffering of those infected with parasitic intestinal can be drastically reduced with periodic deworming programmes with a single-tablet treatment, according to new guidelines approved by the United Nations health agency. Full text...

Freetown, Sierra Leone (PANA) - The Chief Medical Officer in Sierra Leone, Dr Brima Kargbo, has denied rumours that Ebola has resurfaced in the country. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) – The largest global anti-rabies initiative to end human deaths from dog-transmitted rabies by 2030 was announced on Thursday, World Rabies Day, making it a priority disease for key international organizations and governments, according to the United Nations health agency. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) - Worldwide, 25 million unsafe abortions (45% of all abortions) occurred every year between 2010 and 2014, according to a new study by UN World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Guttmacher Institute published on Thursday in The Lancet. Full text...

Maiduguri, Nigeria (PANA) – Large-scale displacement and a health system in tatters as a result of persistent violence by the Boko Haram terrorist group have left many – most worryingly, pregnant women and their unborn babies – vulnerable to cholera in the wake of an outbreak in August, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has warned. Full text...

Lyon, France (PANA) - In the largest action of its kind, INTERPOL’s Operation Pangea X, targeting the illicit online sale of medicines and medical devices, has resulted in some 400 arrests worldwide and the seizure of potentially dangerous medicines, worth more than US$ 51 Full text...

New York, US (PANA) – Senior United Nations officials on Thursday welcomed a breakthrough pricing agreement by global partners to accelerate the availability in low- and middle-income countries of the first affordable, generic, single-pill HIV treatment regimen. Full text...

Geneva, Switzerland (PANA) – Too few new antibiotics are under development to combat the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance, a United Nations report has found. Full text...

Freetown, Sierra Leone (PANA) - A Chinese naval vessel has docked at Freetown port on Tuesday with medical personnel to provide free medical service to Sierra Leoneans over the next four days, the Chinese Embassy here said in a press release. Full text...

New York, US (PANA) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is due to launch a new strategy to guide U.S. global AIDS programmes for the next three years on Tuesday, during his engagement at the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Full text...