United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) 31 Aug 2010 ISLAMABAD — It only took a few minutes on board a helicopter scudding across the wasteland that is the Pakistan flood zone for WFP Executive Director Josette Sheeran to understand the full extent of the crisis currently facing the country. Hectare after hectare of prime farmland […]
By Jill McGivering, BBC24 August 2010 Sukkur is overwhelmed. Along the river banks and canals, on patches of dry ground and alongside the roads, homeless families are sitting or lying in the open air, their possessions piled at their side. They fled their homes with whatever they could carry as rising floodwater inundated their towns […]
By Sajjad Tarakzai (AFP)16 August 2010 NOWSHEHRA, Pakistan — Six million children are suffering from Pakistan’s devastating floods: lost, orphaned or stricken with diarrhoea, they are the most vulnerable victims of the nation’s worst-ever natural disaster. At relief camps in government schools and colleges, and in tent villages on the edge of towns and by […]
BBC1:29PM BST 14 Aug 2010 Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said that 20 million people had been affected by the worst floods in the country’s history, as the UN confirmed the first cholera case. Independence day celebrations in Pakistan were cancelled as floods continued to bring misery to millions and aid agencies warned of […]
June 17, 2010 (AFP) — Logging of tropical forests can boost the incidence of malaria in the surrounding area by nearly 50 per cent, according to new research tracking deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon. The study examined 2006 data tracking malaria rates in 54 Brazilian health districts and high-definition satellite imagery showing the extent of logging […]
By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.Published: May 31, 2010 MUKONO, Uganda — Lynet Nalugo dug a cassava tuber out of her field and sliced it open. Inside its tan skin, the white flesh was riddled with necrotic brown lumps, as obviously diseased as any tuberculosis lung or cancerous breast. “Even the pigs refuse this,” she said. […]
From Treehugger: Last week it was house flies at the Mount Everest base camp, now it’s mosquitoes and malaria in the highlands around Mount Kenya that are in the spotlight, in this video clip from the UN Environment Programme. It’s a short clip, but puts a human face on the sort of changes already being […]
Evidence suggests that the morbidity associated with obesity may increase with longer duration of obesity (7,8,10). Therefore overweight and obesity trends among young adults and children may signal future morbidity. Although young adults (18–29 years, and the topic of this year’s Special Feature) have lower prevalence of obesity (24%) compared with persons 30 years […]
By Sam Lister, Health Editor Climate change poses the biggest threat to human health in the 21st century but its full impact is not being grasped by the healthcare community or policymakers, a medical report concludes. The report, compiled by a commission of academics from University College London and published in The Lancet, warns that […]
