Health

Omicron reported in 57 countries, hospitalizations set to rise: WHO

The Omicron variant has been reported in 57 nations, with COVID cases rising in southern Africa including Zimbabwe, and the number of patients needing hospitalisation is likely to rise as it spreads, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

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The WHO, in its weekly epidemiological report, said more data was needed to assess the severity of disease caused by the Omicron variant and whether its mutations may reduce protection from vaccine-derived immunity.

“Even if the severity is equal or potentially even lower than for Delta variant, it is expected that hospitalizations will increase if more people become infected and that there will be a time lag between an increase in the incidence of cases and an increase in the incidence of deaths,” it said.

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Health

World Food Safety Day: ‘Nobody should die from eating food’

Every day, some 1.6 million people worldwide fall ill from eating contaminated food, which kills 420,000 people each year, two UN agencies said on Tuesday.

Health

World must ‘work as one’ to end plastic pollution: Guterres

As international negotiators committed to hammering out a draft treaty by November on ending plastic pollution, the UN chief stressed in his message for World Environment Day on Monday, the importance of curbing the “catastrophic” consequences of waste plastics.

Health

US state abortion bans ‘putting millions of women and girls at risk’

Millions of women and girls across the United States have suffered an alarming deterioration in access to sexual and reproductive healthcare, following the US Supreme Court decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion in June 2022, UN-appointed independent rights experts said on Friday.