Global Early Warning – Early Action System report on food security and agriculture, October – December 2017

October 2017 (FAO) – The Global Early Warning – Early Action System (EWEA) report on food security and agriculture is developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) through its EWEA. The system aims to translate forecasts and early warnings into anticipatory action.This report specifically highlights: HIGH RISK Yemen (risk of […]

World leaders urged to act on “post-antibiotic apocalypse” by England’s chief medical officer – “We risk the end of modern medicine”

By Ella Pickover 12 October 2017     (The Independent) – England’s chief medical officer has warned of a “post-antibiotic apocalypse” as she issued a call to action urging global leaders to address the growing threat of antibiotic resistance. Professor Dame Sally Davies said that if antibiotics lose their effectiveness it will spell “the end of modern […]

Doctors fear deadly disease outbreak in Puerto Rico – As officials try to assuage fears, Christian Romero says his brother has already died from leptospirosis

By Carolina Moreno 20 October 2017 CAROLINA, Puerto Rico (Huffington Post) – Christian Romero sat in near darkness in the stairwell of his apartment building. The glare from his phone illuminated his face, as he swiped through photos of his late brother Romsy. “I feel like a part of me is missing,” Romero, 28, told […]

A race against time to evacuate the infirm from Puerto Rico

By Carmen Sesin 15 October 2017 MIAMI (NBC News) – Maribel Casas was in the middle of a dialysis treatment when she got an unexpected text message from her sister saying she had to be at Isla Grande Airport, a small airfield in San Juan, Puerto Rico, by 2 p.m. Her relatives in Miami had […]

Video: Experts fear looming health crisis in Puerto Rico – “People are here for weeks in the rubble and no one comes to do anything about it”

By José A. Iglesias 13 October 2017 (Miami Herald) – Three weeks after Hurricane Maria ransacked Puerto Rico, mounds of soaking, animal-infested garbage still line streets. Public health experts say every day that the debris remains, the risk of an epidemic grows. Kamille Camacho, of Iniciativa Comunitaria, says, “I feel helpless because I want to […]

Graph of the Day: Heroin and fentanyl deaths in New Jersey, 2004-2016

By Stephen Stirling and Luke Nozicka 4 October 2017 NEWARK (NJ Advance Media) – Four programs in New Jersey have been awarded federal grants to fight the state’s opioid epidemic, a crisis that has claimed the lives of more than 7,000 people since 2012. NJ Advance Media has learned that the State Parole Board will […]

Tenfold increase in childhood and adolescent obesity in four decades – World will have more obese children and adolescents than underweight by 2022

LONDON, 11 October 2017 (WHO) – The number of obese children and adolescents (aged five to 19 years) worldwide has risen tenfold in the past four decades. If current trends continue, more children and adolescents will be obese than moderately or severely underweight by 2022, according to a new study led by Imperial College London […]

Latin America and Caribbean falling off “zero hunger” path toward 2030 – “The region faces a double burden of malnutrition”

12 October 2017 (United Nations) – The total number of persons that suffer from hunger in Latin America and the Caribbean has increased, reversing decades of progress, even as overweight and obesity emerged as a major problem in all countries in the region of the Americas, a United Nations-backed report shows.“The region has taken a […]

Three weeks since Hurricane Maria, much of Puerto Rico still dark, dry, frustrated – “We feel completely abandoned here”

By Manuel Roig-Franzia and Arelis R. Hernández 11 October 2017 YABUCOA, PUERTO RICO (The Washington Post) – Late each night, Rafael Surillo Ruiz, the mayor of a town with one of Puerto Rico’s most critical ports, drives for miles on darkened roads, easing around downed power lines and crumpled tree branches — to check his […]

Global warming may make Phoenix uninhabitable by 2050 – “It’s currently the fastest warming big city in the U.S.”

By Steve Hanley 29 September 2017 (CleanTechnica) – Phoenix, Arizona, is America’s fifth largest city. As you fly in to Sky Harbor airport, the city stretches from horizon to horizon beneath you. It’s hot in Phoenix. Always has been. The people who live there laugh about it, calling it a “dry heat” because there is […]

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