Despite encouraging news about COVID-19 vaccines and cautious optimism over potential new tools against the disease, “this is not the time for complacency,” the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Monday during his latest press briefing in Geneva.

As countries work to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic, they also have the chance to “get it right” on climate change, the UN Secretary-General told a virtual gathering of influential leaders on Monday.

With the world population expected to rise to 9.7 billion by 2050, food production will need to keep pace, and experts believe the Ocean can provide much of the sustenance we need.

If just two per cent of the Ocean were to be sustainably farmed, the world could easily be fed.

As the number of people with diabetes surges, many are at “increased risk of severe disease and death from COVID-19”, the UN chief said in his message for World Diabetes Day, on Saturday.

A global chronic under-investment in public health has been exposed by the coronavirus pandemic, which must now lead to a major re-think in how all societies value health, said the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday.

Although South Sudan had recently been declared free from the wild poliovirus, the UN health agency said on Friday that 15 children under the age of five are reported to have been infected by a vaccine-derived form of polio.

The fifth anniversary of the Paris Agreement and the adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) “go hand in hand”, the UN chief told a major development bank conference on Thursday.

Measles killed an estimated 207,500 people last year after a decade-long failure to reach optimal vaccination coverage, resulting in the highest number of cases for 23 years, the World Health Organization (WHO) and US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said in a joint report on Thursday.

A bold new blueprint to tackle all neglected tropical diseases has been agreed at the UN health agency’s World Health Assembly, which will involve a radical shift in approach by Member States and non-state actors, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.