World Moves Closer to Eradicating Guinea Worm Disease

JOHANNESBURG (The Associated Press): A new report says the world is moving closer to eradicating Guinea worm disease, in which a meter-long worm slowly emerges from a blister in a person’s skin.
The US-based Carter Center, which leads the eradication campaign, says just 30 cases were reported last year in isolated areas of Ethiopia and Chad. All 15 cases in Ethiopia occurred at a farm where workers drank unfiltered water from a contaminated pond.
Mali has not reported any cases in 25 months, and civil war-torn South Sudan has reported no cases in 13 months. The Carter Center called that a “major accomplishment.”
The incapacitating disease three decades ago affected more than 3 million people in 21 countries in Africa and Asia. The meter-long worm incubates in people for up to a year before painfully emerging, often through extremely sensitive parts of the body.
“It was more painful than giving birth,” one South Sudan resident, Rejina Bodi, told The Associated Press last year. “Childbirth ends but this pain persists.”
Unlike other diseases which are controlled by medicines or vaccines, Guinea worm can be eradicated by educating people how to filter and drink clean water.
Globally, the Guinea worm program is entering the final stretch, though the World Health Organization warns that the remaining cases can be the most difficult to control as they usually occur in remote and often inaccessible areas.
If South Sudan continues to report no cases, the world’s youngest country will be on track to be certified Guinea worm-free in the next couple of years. In an interview last year with the AP, former President Jimmy Carter praised South Sudan for making steady progress despite the “tremendous problems” in the East African nation.
The Associated Press

World Moves Closer to Eradicating Guinea Worm Disease

UN Environment and WHO agree to major collaboration on environmental health risks

UN Environment and WHO agree to major collaboration on environmental health risks
10 JANUARY 2018 | NAIROBI – UN Environment and WHO have agreed a new, wide-ranging collaboration to accelerate action to curb environmental health risks that cause an estimated 12.6 million deaths a year.
Today in Nairobi, Mr Erik Solheim, head of UN Environment, and Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO, signed an agreement to step up joint actions to combat air pollution, climate change and antimicrobial resistance, as well as improve coordination on waste and chemicals management, water quality, and food and nutrition issues. The collaboration also includes joint management of the BreatheLife advocacy campaign to reduce air pollution for multiple climate, environment and health benefits. This represents the most significant formal agreement on joint action across the spectrum of environment and health issues in over 15 years.
“There is an urgent need for our two agencies to work more closely together to address the critical threats to environmental sustainability and climate – which are the foundations for life on this planet. This new agreement recognizes that sober reality,” said UN Environment’s Solheim.
“Our health is directly related to the health of the environment we live in. Together, air, water and chemical hazards kill more than 12.6 million people a year. This must not continue,” said WHO’s Tedros. He added: “Most of these deaths occur in developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America where environmental pollution takes its biggest health toll.”
The new collaboration creates a more systematic framework for joint research, development of tools and guidance, capacity building, monitoring of Sustainable Development Goals, global and regional partnerships, and support to regional health and environment fora.
The two agencies will develop a joint work programme and hold an annual high-level meeting to evaluate progress and make recommendations for continued collaboration.
The WHO-UN Environment collaboration follows a Ministerial Declaration on Health, Environment and Climate Change calling for the creation of a global “Health, Environment and Climate Change” Coalition, at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) COP 22 in Marrakesh, Morocco in 2016.
Just last month, under the overarching topic “Towards a Pollution-Free Planet”, the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA), which convenes environment ministers worldwide, adopted a resolution on Environment and Health, called for expanded partnerships with relevant UN agencies and partners, and for an implementation plan to tackle pollution.

Priority areas of cooperation between WHO and UN Environment include:

Air Quality - More effective air quality monitoring including guidance to countries on standard operating
procedures; more accurate environment and health assessments, including economic assessment; and
advocacy, including the BreatheLife campaign promoting air pollution reductions for climate and health
benefits.
Climate - Tackling vector-borne disease and other climate-related health risks, including through improved
assessment of health benefits from climate mitigation and adaptation strategies.
Water – Ensuring effective monitoring of data on water quality, including through data sharing and
collaborative analysis of pollution risks to health.
Waste and chemicals – Promotion of more sustainable waste and chemicals management, particularly in the
 area of pesticides, fertilizers, use of antimicrobials . The collaboration aims to advance the goal of sound
 lifecycle chemicals management by 2020, a target set out at the 2012 United Nations Conference on
 Sustainable Development.

News release