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

Once-a-week pill for HIV shows promise in animals

Human trials of a once-a-week oral pill for HIV could start, after successful tests in pigs, claim US scientists.
The slow-release tablet could free patients from having to take daily medication, they say.
It looks like a normal capsule, but on reaching the stomach its coating dissolves and a special structure packed inside unfolds.
This 4cm (1.5in) star-shaped scaffold stays in the stomach for seven days, steadily releasing its cargo of drugs.
More tests in other mammals, including monkeys, are recommended but the researchers say trials in people could begin within two years.
HIV experts said the prospect of a new treatment option was to be welcomed, but that a once-a-week HIV pill for people was “still a way off”.
The star is too large to move out of the stomach but still allows food to journey through to the small intestine.
Once it has delivered its payload, the star begins to degrade and passes on through the digestive tract.
In the pig trial, the researchers dosed it with enough of three antiretroviral drugs – dolutegravir, rilpivirine and cabotegravir – to last for seven days.
The researchers say, in the future, the oral drug delivery device could be used for a wide range of diseases, not just HIV.

Slow release

Preliminary tests in pigs have already been done with a malaria drug called ivermectin and the star remaining in the stomach for up to two weeks.
Researcher Giovanni Traverso, from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the US, said: “We wanted to come up with a system to make it easier for patients to stick to taking their treatments.
“Changing a medication so it only needs to be taken once a week rather than once a day should be more convenient and improve compliance.
“Once-a-month formulations might even be possible for some diseases.”
A company called Lyndra is now developing the technology and plans human trials of the long-lasting oral delivery pills within the next 12 months. Tests with HIV medication could begin after that, subject to approval and more animal tests.
Dr Traverso said: “There are lots of patients this could help, including people with dementia or mental health disorders such as schizophrenia.”
Some slow-release drugs could already be given by injection, he said.
A spokeswoman from the British HIV Association said: “This research is still in the early stages of development and there is clearly some way to go from testing in pigs and mathematical modelling to human trials before its effectiveness can be assessed.”
A Terrence Higgins Trust representative said: “Medical advances have come on leaps and bounds for HIV in the UK in recent years, however we do know that taking a pill each day does present practical barriers for some people living with HIV.
“We welcome the prospect of a treatment that removes these barriers, and presents all people living with HIV with further choice, provided that it is no less effective than current options available.”
The HIV research, published in the journal Nature Communications, was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

BBC/HEALTH