Polio vaccination campaigns have resumed in Afghanistan and Pakistan – the last two countries where the crippling disease has a foothold – after a reported “surge” in cases. Joanne Lu August 14, 2020 Child vaccination drives, including against polio, were stopped in March due to concerns that they might increase the risk of COVID-19 transmission to children, their caregivers and vaccinators. The precautions...
Another Devastating Humanitarian Crisis is Colliding with COVID-19 in South Asia: Monsoon Floods. Joanne Lu July 28, 2020 More than 9.6 million people in India, Bangladesh and Nepal have been affected by flooding from this year’s devastating monsoon rains. Homes and crops have been destroyed, families have been stranded, and by go...
WHO and UNICEF: “Alarming Decline” in Childhood Immunizations Due to COVID-19 Joanne Lu July 17, 2020 For months, health experts working in underimmunized areas have warned that the COVID-19 pandemic is interrupting life-saving vaccination campaigns, particularly in poor countries. Now, a new report by the Worl...
How Different Countries Have Handled COVID-19, Ranked Joanne Lu July 7, 2020 How Countries Responded to COVID-19 Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries have deployed drastically different responses. According to a new UN report, we’re still in the early phase of this crisi...
The 10 Most Neglected Refugee and Displacement Crises in the World Joanne Lu June 22, 2020 Millions of people are forced to flee their homes every year as a result of conflict and persecution. But not all these emergencies receive the same amount of attention. In 2019, nine out of the top 10 most neg...
COVID-19’s Staggering Toll on Education Around the World Joanne Lu May 29, 2020 After decades of hard work to get kids into primary schools, the COVID-19 pandemic has now pushed education back to “global levels not seen since the 1980s,” the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said in a new re...
How Will COVID-19 Impact Africa? The WHO Releases Pandemic Projections Joanne Lu May 12, 2020 So far, COVID-19 hasn’t hit Africa as hard as other regions, but a new study by the World Health Organization (WHO) predicts the worst of the pandemic is yet to come for the continent, and it may “smolder” for ...
What Will COVID-19 Do to the Sustainable Development Goals? Joanne Lu April 17, 2020 The economic impact of COVID-19 could increase global poverty for the first time in three decades, pushing more than half a billion people – or 8 percent of humanity – into poverty, according to a new paper pub...
The UN Has a “Global Roadmap” to Defeat COVID-19. Will Countries Follow It? Joanne Lu April 7, 2020 Late last week, the United Nations published a global “roadmap” to defeat COVID-19, including a new $1 billion trust fund for low- and middle-income countries, where the impacts are expected to be far worse onc...
