Latest news with #UNWorldHealthOrganization
Scoop
5 days ago
- Health
- Scoop
Flavoured Nicotine Products Driving Youth Addiction, WHO Warns
This is especially true among youth users: it's one of the main reasons young people experiment with tobacco or nicotine products in the first place, according to the UN World Health Organization (WHO). Flavoured nicotine and tobacco products are inherently addictive and toxic – often more so than regular tobacco. Flavours increase usage, make quitting harder, and have been linked to serious lung diseases, WHO maintains. Despite decades of progress in tobacco control, flavoured products are luring a new generation into addiction and contributing to eight million tobacco-related deaths each year. Youth-oriented marketing Nicotine products are often marketed directly toward young people through bright and colourful packaging featuring sweet and fruity flavour descriptors. Research shows that this type of advertising can trigger reward centres in adolescent brains and weaken the impact of health warnings. Young people also report a growing presence of flavoured nicotine product marketing across all social media platforms. This marketing of flavours works across all forms of nicotine and tobacco products, including cigarettes, e-cigarettes, cigars, pouches and hookahs. WHO said flavours such as menthol, bubble gum and cotton candy, are 'masking the harshness of tobacco' and other nicotine products, turning what are toxic products 'into youth-friendly bait.' Call for action Just ahead of World No Tobacco Day, the UN health agency released a series of fact sheets and called on governments to ban all flavours in tobacco and nicotine products to protect young people from lifelong addiction and disease. It cited Articles 9 and 10 of the successful 2003 Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which obliges countries to regulate the contents and disclosure of tobacco products, including flavourings. WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Friday that ' without bold action, the global tobacco epidemic…will continue to be driven by addiction dressed up with appealing flavours. ' As of December 2024, over 50 countries had adopted policies regulating tobacco additives, with most targeting flavourings by banning flavour labels or images and restricting the sale of flavored products. Some also control flavour use during production. However, the WHO noted that tobacco companies and retailers have found ways to circumvent these rules, offering flavour accessories including sprays, cards, capsules and filter tips, to add to unflavoured products. Still, WHO is urging all 184 FCTC parties (which make up 90 per cent of the world's population) to implement and enforce strong bans and restrictions on flavoured products and related additives.
New Indian Express
22-05-2025
- Health
- New Indian Express
Over 90 lorry loads of aid now in Gaza, but 'nowhere near enough to support everyone in need,' says UN
Over 90 lorry loads of humanitarian aid have been retrieved by UN teams in a night-time operation to prepare them for distribution inside the Gaza Strip. This, three days after Israel eased an 11-week-long blockade. Hours earlier 198 trucks entered Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing in the south of the enclave, carrying nutrition supplies, medicines and wheat flour. The aid, which included flour, baby food and medical equipment, was picked up from the Kerem Shalom crossing on Wednesday night and taken to warehouses for distribution. Pictures showed a bakery producing bread with some of the flour, the BBC reported. UN aid relief coordinator Tom Fletcher said until earlier this week, no commercial or humanitarian supplies had been allowed into Gaza since March 2, deepening an already catastrophic hunger crisis and sparking widespread condemnation from the international community. According to the UN World Health Organization (WHO) at least 57 children have reportedly died from the effects of malnutrition, according to the local health authorities. The number is likely an underestimate and is expected to increase if the aid blockade continues. In their latest report, UN-partnered food insecurity experts warned that nearly 71 000 children under the age of five are expected to be acutely malnourished over the next 11 months unless Gazans can access sufficient food and healthcare support. Video footage published online Thursday by the UN World Food Programme (WFP) showed aid crews hurrying to offload sacks of flour from trucks at a floodlit warehouse. 'But it's nowhere near enough to support everyone in need. We need more trucks, more food, in now,' the UN agency warned. No hygiene products or fuel have been allowed into the enclave by the Israeli authorities, the UN agency noted.
BBC News
24-03-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Skin-lightening creams in Nigeria: 'I scarred my six children'
A mother in northern Nigeria is visibly upset as she clutches her two-year-old child, who has burns and discoloured skin on his face and 32-year-old used skin-whitening products on all six of her children, under pressure from her family, with results that she now deeply whose name has been changed to protect her family's identity, says one of her daughters covers her face whenever she goes out in order to hide her was left with darker skin than before - with a pale circle around her eyes, while a third has whitish scars on her lips and toddler still has weeping wounds - his skin is taking a long time to heal."My sister gave birth to light-skinned children but my children are darker skinned. I noticed that my mother favours my sister's children over mine due to their skin tone and it hurt my feelings a lot," Fatima says she used creams she bought at her local supermarket in the city of Kano, without a doctor's prescription. At first it seemed to work. The grandmother warmed towards Fatima's children, who were aged between two and 16 at the time. But then the burns and scars or lightening, also known as bleaching in Nigeria, is used in different parts of the world for cosmetic reasons, though these often have deep cultural in Nigeria use skin-whitening products more than in any other African country - 77% use them regularly, according to the UN World Health Organization (WHO). In Congo-Brazzaville the figure is 66%, in Senegal 50% and in Ghana 39%.The creams may contain corticosteroids or hydroquinone, which can be harmful if used in high quantities, and in many countries are only obtainable with a doctor's prescription. Other ingredients sometimes used are the poisonous metal, mercury, and kojic acid - a by-product from the manufacture of the Japanese alcoholic drink, acne and skin discolouration are possible consequences, but also inflammatory disorders, mercury poisoning and kidney skin may become thinner, with the result that wounds take longer to heal, and are more likely to become infected, the WHO says. The situation is so bad that Nigeria's National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (Nafdac) declared a state of emergency in is also becoming more common for women to bleach their children, like Fatima did."A lot of people link light skin to beauty or wealth. Women tend to shield, as they call it, their children from that discrimination by bleaching them from childbirth," Zainab Bashir Yau, the owner of a dermatology spa in the capital, Abuja, tells the estimates that 80% of the women she has met have bleached their children, or plan to do were bleached themselves as babies, she says, so are just continuing the of the most common ways to tell whether someone is using skin-whitening products in Nigeria is by the darkness of their knuckles. Other parts of people's hands or feet get lighter, but knuckles tend to remain smokers and drug users also sometimes have dark patches on their hands, due to the users of skin-lightening products are sometimes mistakenly assumed to belong to this group. Fatima says that is what happened to her daughters, aged 16 and 14."They faced discrimination from society - they all point fingers at them and call them drug addicts. This has affected them a lot," she have both lost potential fiancés because men do not want to be associated with women who might be thought to take drugs.I visited a popular market in Kano, where people who call themselves "mixologists" create skin-whitening creams from market has a whole row of shops where thousands of these creams are sold. Some pre-mixed varieties are arranged on shelves, but customers can also select raw ingredients and ask for the cream to be mixed in front of them.I noticed that many bleaching creams, with labels saying they were for babies, contained regulated sellers admitted using regulated ingredients such as kojic acid, hydroquinone and a powerful antioxidant, glutathione, which may cause rashes and other side-effects.I also witnessed teenage girls buying bleaching creams for themselves and in bulk so that they could sell them to their peers. One woman, who had discoloured hands, insisted that a seller add a lightening agent to a cream that was being mixed for her children, even though it was a regulated substance for adults and illegal to use on children."Even though my hands are discoloured, I am here to buy creams for my kids so they can be light-skinned. I believe my hands are this way just because I used the wrong one. Nothing will happen to my children," she seller said most of his customers were buying creams to make their babies "glow", or to look "radiant and shiny".Most seemed to be unaware of the approved salesman said he used "a lot of kojic" - well over the prescribed limit - if someone wanted light skin and a smaller quantity if they wanted a subtler change. The approved dosage of kojic acid in creams in Nigeria is 1%, according to Nafdac.I even saw salesmen giving women Leonard Omokpariola, a director at Nafdac, says attempts are being made to educate people about the also says markets are being raided, and there are efforts to seize skin-lightening ingredients at Nigeria's borders as they are brought into the he says it was sometimes hard for law-enforcement officials to identify these substances."Some of them are just being transported in unlabelled containers, so if you do not take them to the labs for evaluation, you can't tell what is inside."Fatima says her actions will haunt her forever, especially if her children's scars do not fade."When I confided in my mum about what I did, due to her behaviour, and when she heard the dangers of the cream and what stigma her grandchildren are facing, she was sad that they had to go through that and apologised," she is determined to help other parents avoid making the same mistake."Even though I have stopped... the side-effects are still here, I beg other parents to use my situation as an example." Go to for more news from the African us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica
BBC News
18-03-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Nigeria and Kenya among nations running out of HIV drugs
Eight countries - six of them in Africa, including Nigeria, Kenya and Lesotho - could soon run out of HIV drugs following the US government's recent decision to pause foreign aid, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said. US President Donald Trump announced the freeze on his first day in office in January as part of a review into government spending. "Disruptions to HIV programmes could undo 20 years of progress," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned. It could also lead to more than 10 million additional cases of HIV and three million HIV-related deaths, he added, noting this was "more than triple the number of deaths last year". Nigeria, Kenya, Lesotho, South Sudan, Burkina Faso and Mali - as well as Haiti and Ukraine - would run out of live-saving anti-retroviral (ARV) medicines in the coming months, Dr Tedros said at a press conference on Monday. Trump's executive order paused foreign aid support for an initial duration of 90 days in line with his "America First" foreign policy. It has affected health programmes around the world, leaving shipments of critical medical supplies, including HIV drugs, greatly hampered. The majority of the US Agency for International Development's (USAID) programmes have since been terminated. Despite a waiver issued in February for the US's ground-breaking HIV programme, its work has severely impacted. Known as the US President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), it relies on logistical support from USAID and other organisations hit by the turmoil. It has led to the "immediate stop to services for HIV treatment, testing and prevention in more than 50 countries", Dr Tedros said. Launched in 2003, Pepfar has enabled some of the world's poorest people to access anti and has been credited with saving more than 26 million lives worldwide. During his first days in office, Trump also announced that the US would pull out of the WHO, affecting funding for the global health agency. "The US administration has been extremely generous over many years. And of course, it's within its rights to decide what it supports and to what extent," Dr Tedros said. "But the US also has a responsibility to ensure that if it withdraws direct funding for countries, it's done in an orderly and humane way that allows them to find alternative sources of funding. An estimated 25 million people are living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, which is more than two-thirds of the global total 38 million people living with the disease. In Nigeria, nearly two million people are living with HIV, with many relying on receiving aid-funded medicines. Kenya has the seventh-largest number of people living with HIV in the world, at around 1.4 million, according to WHO data. "We ask the US to reconsider its support for global health, which not only saves lives around the world, it also makes the US safer by preventing outbreaks from spreading internationally," Dr Tedros said. You may also be interested in: Nine things about Lesotho - the nation Trump says 'nobody has ever heard of' US cuts send South Africa's HIV treatment 'off a cliff' Why trainee Kenyan doctors are taking their own lives How Trump locked out contraception in Africa in his first term Go to for more news from the African continent. Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica HIV & Aids South Sudan Kenya Nigeria Burkina Faso Mali Africa Lesotho
Yahoo
18-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Nigeria and Kenya among nations running out of HIV drugs
Eight countries - six of them in Africa, including Nigeria, Kenya and Lesotho - could soon run out of HIV drugs following the US government's recent decision to pause foreign aid, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said. US President Donald Trump announced the freeze on his first day in office in January as part of a review into government spending. "Disruptions to HIV programmes could undo 20 years of progress," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned. It could also lead to more than 10 million additional cases of HIV and three million HIV-related deaths, he added, noting this was "more than triple the number of deaths last year". Nigeria, Kenya, Lesotho, South Sudan, Burkina Faso and Mali - as well as Haiti and Ukraine - would run out of live-saving anti-retroviral (ARV) medicines in the coming months, Dr Tedros said at a press conference on Monday. What is USAID and why is Trump poised to 'close it down'? 'My wife fears sex, I fear death' - impacts of the USAID freeze How a US freeze upended global aid in a matter of days Trump's executive order paused foreign aid support for an initial duration of 90 days in line with his "America First" foreign policy. It has affected health programmes around the world, leaving shipments of critical medical supplies, including HIV drugs, greatly hampered. The majority of the US Agency for International Development's (USAID) programmes have since been terminated. Despite a waiver issued in February for the US's ground-breaking HIV programme, its work has severely impacted. Known as the US President's Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), it relies on logistical support from USAID and other organisations hit by the turmoil. It has led to the "immediate stop to services for HIV treatment, testing and prevention in more than 50 countries", Dr Tedros said. Launched in 2003, Pepfar has enabled some of the world's poorest people to access anti and has been credited with saving more than 26 million lives worldwide. During his first days in office, Trump also announced that the US would pull out of the WHO, affecting funding for the global health agency. "The US administration has been extremely generous over many years. And of course, it's within its rights to decide what it supports and to what extent," Dr Tedros said. "But the US also has a responsibility to ensure that if it withdraws direct funding for countries, it's done in an orderly and humane way that allows them to find alternative sources of funding. An estimated 25 million people are living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, which is more than two-thirds of the global total 38 million people living with the disease. In Nigeria, nearly two million people are living with HIV, with many relying on receiving aid-funded medicines. Kenya has the seventh-largest number of people living with HIV in the world, at around 1.4 million, according to WHO data. "We ask the US to reconsider its support for global health, which not only saves lives around the world, it also makes the US safer by preventing outbreaks from spreading internationally," Dr Tedros said. Nine things about Lesotho - the nation Trump says 'nobody has ever heard of' US cuts send South Africa's HIV treatment 'off a cliff' Why trainee Kenyan doctors are taking their own lives How Trump locked out contraception in Africa in his first term Go to for more news from the African continent. Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, on Facebook at BBC Africa or on Instagram at bbcafrica Africa Daily Focus on Africa
