Health | WPN World People News

The Board of Directors of the World Bank (WB) approved a US$100 million loan on Friday, March 24 to improve the practices, services, and behaviors that are key to curbing chronic malnutrition in Guatemala, with emphasis being placed on the first 1,000 days of life.

Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the world’s most devastating infectious diseases. March 24th marks the day in 1882 when German microbiologist Robert Koch announced he had discovered Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacterium that causes this ancient scourge. On March 24th, in recognition of World TB Day, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), reasserts its commitment to improving our understanding of TB and how to prevent, diagnose and treat it.

Saleh, 6 years old, is vaccinated against polio in Jiddari Polo, Maiduguri. October 2016.

More than 190 000 polio vaccinators in 13 countries across west and central Africa will immunize more than 116 million children over the next week, to tackle the last remaining stronghold of polio on the continent.

Developing new treatments for diseases often requires large numbers of clinical research participants enrolled in the same study at numerous geographical sites. These multisite clinical trials are well-positioned to discover whether a promising therapeutic is safe and effective, and may provide medical professionals with the information needed for treating their patients. However, the initiation of such studies may be delayed because each site typically relies on its own Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) to provide ethics reviews of the risks and benefits of the proposed research.

New tuberculosis (TB) ethics guidance, on March 22, launched by the World Health Organization (WHO), aims to help ensure that countries implementing the End TB Strategy adhere to sound ethical standards to protect the rights of all those affected.

A study in Neurology suggests that analyzing levels of the protein p75ECD in urine samples from people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) may help monitor disease progression as well as determine the effectiveness of therapies. The study was supported by National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), both part of the National Institutes of Health.

Health workers vaccinate children in the first oral cholera vaccination campaign at the Banadir Hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia.

This week the conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic enters its seventh year. Over the past 6 years access to health services for the civilian population in the country has seriously deteriorated. More than half of public hospitals and primary health centres in the Syrian Arab Republic have either closed or are only partially functioning. Almost two–thirds of health care workers have fled. Many health care facilities that are open lack clean water, electricity, and sufficient medical and surgical supplies.

Silencing a gene called Nrl in mice prevents the loss of cells from degenerative diseases of the retina, according to a new study. The findings could lead to novel therapies for preventing vision loss from human diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa. The study was conducted by researchers at the National Eye Institute (NEI), part of the National Institutes of Health.