Teenagerschwangerschaften – immer noch ein grosses Problem weltweit!

The State of World Population 2022 “Seeing the Unseen: The case for action in the neglected crisis of unintended pregnancy”. This year’s State of World Population report brings together the latest evidence on unintended pregnancy and its impact on societies, countries and global development overall. The report explores the real-world conditions that are linked to unintended pregnancies, including poverty, lower levels of education attainment and labour force participation, and exposure to violence and coercion.

• State of World Population Report 2022 - "Seeing the Unseen"
• Recording of our event

Genf, 4. April 2022. Russische Streitkräfte, die in der Ukraine kämpfen, haben in der östlichen Region Charkiw verbotene Antipersonenminen eingesetzt, berichtet Human Rights Watch. Am heutigen Internationalen Tag der Aufklärung über die Minengefahren und der Unterstützung bei der Minenräumung verurteilt Handicap International (HI) diese barbarische Praxis.

• Handicap International Schweiz

Présent depuis 2015 dans le pays, le réseau Médecins du Monde continue à agir en Ukraine et renforce ses actions aux frontières, afin de soulager la détresse de la population, soutenir les structures de soins et venir en aide aux personnes fuyant la guerre.

• Médecins du Monde Suisse

Das Schweizerische Rote Kreuz (SRK) unterstützt Menschen, die von der Ukraine-Krise betroffen sind. Hier finden Sie die wichtigsten Informationen auf einen Blick.

• Schweizerisches Rotes Kreuz

Die Situation in der Ukraine und den benachbarten Ländern wird immer dramatischer. Millionen von Menschen sind auf der Flucht. Das Schweizerische Rote Kreuz (SRK) unterstützt die koordinierte Hilfe der internationalen Rotkreuz- und Rothalbmondbewegung finanziell. In fünf Ländern sind Nothilfe-Spezialisten des SRK im Einsatz.

• Schweizerisches Rotes Kreuz

Seit rund einem Jahr unterstützt SolidarMed Menschen in der Provinz Cabo Delgado im Norden Mosambiks, die vor der Gewalt terroristischer Gruppierungen flüchteten. Damit trägt SolidarMed zu einer besseren Gesundheit der Geflüchteten bei.

• SolidarMed

In informellen Siedlungen in Südafrika fehlt es an allem. Mit einem neuen Gemeinschaftszentrum unterstützt SolidarMed dort HIV-betroffene Kinder und Jugendliche, damit sie eine Chance auf eine bessere Zukunft haben. Auch ihre Eltern profitieren davon.

• SolidarMed

Ces deux dernières années nous ont montré à quel point les inégalités en matière de santé constituent une source de tension dans le monde. C’est pourquoi la CSSR cherche toujours à se réinventer afin de répondre au mieux à ces problématiques. Dans ce bulletin nous vous invitons à vous plonger dans l’histoire de la CSSR et de ses origines antifasciste et de découvrir le quotidien des sages-femmes traditionnelles à Quetzaltenango.

• Centrale Sanitaire Suisse Romande (CSSR)

Heute Freitag, 1. April 2022, wurde der neue Hauptsitz des Schweizerischen Tropen- und Public Health-Instituts (Swiss TPH) im Bachgraben-Areal in Allschwil offiziell eröffnet. Rund 700 Mitarbeitende und Studierende können nun im Neubau der Basler Architekten Kunz und Mösch unter einem Dach arbeiten, forschen und studieren. An der heutigen Einweihung nahmen mehr als 300 Gäste aus Politik, Wirtschaft und Wissenschaft sowie der Nachbarschaft in Allschwil teil.

• Swiss TPH

Auf Madagaskar ist Mangelernährung eine der grössten Herausforderungen des Landes. Jedes zweite Kind unter fünf Jahren* leidet an Mangelernährung. Aus diesem Grund hat Enfants du Monde ein Projekt zur richtigen Ernährung für Kinder und Lehrkräfte an drei Schulen in Ambanja im Norden des Landes lanciert. Das Ziel? Den Lehrkräften, Kindern und Eltern die Grundlagen einer gesunden und nährstoffreichen Ernährung mit lokalen Produkten zu vermitteln, um somit Mangelernährung vorzubeugen. Unterernährung führt bei Kindern zu Wachstumsverzögerungen, die verhindert werden können.Schulkantinen, sofern vorhanden, sind manchmal die einzige Möglichkeit für Schüler, mindestens eine nahrhafte Mahlzeit pro Tag zu erhalten.

• Enfants du Monde
• UNICEF

Vom 6. bis 8. April findet am Sitz der Vereinten Nationen in Genf die letzte Verhandlungsrunde für ein internationales Abkommen zum Verbot des Einsatzes von schweren Sprengwaffen in Wohngebieten statt. Handicap International ruft daher die Schweiz auf, mit ihrer humanitären Tradition, eine entschiedene Haltung zugunsten eines besseren Bevölkerungsschutzes einzunehmen.

• Medicus Mundi Schweiz

"(...) Nearly 86 years later, history is rhyming. The world, through 21st-century information technology, now views a war of conquest in Europe in near real time. Russia’s war in Ukraine has upended a world order established in the wake of a worldwide conflict and designed to prevent wars of conquest and to prevent one dictator from attempting to shift the boundaries of nations at his own whim. Again, factions are forming—either in support of the aggressor state, led by a despot who stands in opposition to basic human rights, or in favor of the established order that obligates nations to refrain from wars of conquest."

• Foreign Policy (FP)

"In its largest release of data on air quality ever, WHO has found that most of the world’s population are breathing unsafe levels of air pollutant – particularly fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and Nitrogen dioxide (NO2) – which cause excess illness and premature death from respiratory disease, as well as from cardiovascular disease and cancers. “Air Quality is poorest in specific regions, like the Eastern Mediterranean Region, the Southeast Asian region and also Africa, said Sophie Gumy, WHO technical officer of the updated data at a press briefing on Monday."

• Health Policy Watch

3-Part Webinar Series - offered by MMS Although global attention to early childhood development has been established through its inclusion in the UN Sustainable Development Goals, 250 million children (43%) younger than 5 years in low-income and middle-income countries are at risk of not achieving their developmental potential due to poverty and nutritional deficit.

• Recording Webinar 1: What is nurturing care?
• Recording Webinar 2: How can we strengthen nurturing care through health and nutrition services?
• Recording Webinar 3: How can NGOs work with government and health systems to ensure all children receive nurturing care?
• Download (pdf | 338 kB)

"In an increasingly polarised world, reaching a range of audiences - including those who are sceptical of "aid" - is vital for building broad public support to tackle the issues of global poverty, injustice and inequality collectively. However, when talking about "aid", we have a duty to move beyond narrow, tired and partial frames to a position of greater understanding and global solidarity."

• bond

"Colonial occupation of the Majority world might have ended over half a century ago, but the shadow it cast on colonies is not lost to anyone interested in the origins of global poverty. Together with its progeny the neo-liberal economic system –colonial legacies are at the heart of global poverty, inequalities and suffering. For instance, according to a report by Oxfam, corporate tax dodging alone costs poor countries at least $100 billion every year –enough to provide an education to 124 million children and prevent the deaths of almost eight million mothers and children each year."

• Health Poverty Action

Die COVID-19-Pandemie veränderte die globale Gesundheitslandschaft. Sie veränderte die Gesundheitssysteme und -politiken sowie die Art und Weise, wie die an der internationalen Gesundheitszusammenarbeit beteiligten Organisationen arbeiten, erheblich. Seit 2015 arbeitet die internationale Gemeinschaft an der Umsetzung der Agenda 2030 für nachhaltige Entwicklung, um globale Herausforderungen, Ungleichheiten und Disparitäten, die durch die weltweite COVID-19-Pandemie noch stärker zutage getreten sind, zu beseitigen. Die Auswirkungen von COVID-19 haben in vielen Ländern Fortschritte ins Stocken gebracht und hart erkämpfte Erfolge zunichte gemacht. Das MMS-Symposium untersuchte die wichtigsten strukturellen Faktoren, die zu den unverhältnismässigen Auswirkungen der COVID-19-Pandemie auf viele Bevölkerungsgruppen, aber vor allem auf Randgruppen geführt haben. Weitere Erkenntnisse unseres Symposiums zu diesem Thema werden in diesem Bulletin vorgestellt.

• MMS Bulletin

"The COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on how human health and ‘planetary health’ are inextricably linked – through deforestation, urbanization and climate change, all of which increase future disease risks. This year’s Geneva Health Forum explores these and other critical global health challenges, as well as emerging solutions, just ahead of the World Health Assembly."

• Health Policy Watch

"WHO is seeking public input on this question to support the work of the intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) to draft and negotiate an international instrument to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. The first round of hearings will be held through a webcast on 12-13 April 2022. Sessions times are in Central European Summer Time (CEST). - 12 April, 8h-11h, 14h-17h; 13 April, 9h-12h, 15h-18h. A second round of hearings is planned for 16-17 June."

• World Health Organization

"As countries in Europe and elsewhere roll back strict measures against COVID-19 and aim to soon declare the pandemic over, African countries and their public health stakeholders are also starting to shift their attention. Vaccination continues to remain important, but the focus is moving on to longer-term testing and surveillance approaches that can be integrated into, and will strengthen, national health systems."

• nature medicine

"Researchers in a pivotal African clinical trial have been denied access to a key COVID-19 antiviral drug, frustrating efforts to test the treatment in African populations and in combination with therapies that could potentially expand its utility on the continent. The Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi) has asked Pfizer for supplies of its antiviral drug Paxlovid to use in the ANTICOV clinical trial, a large study in ten African countries that aims to find treatments for mild to moderate COVID-19 — particularly those that will work in resource-poor settings."

• nature

"More than 500 days have passed since - in the midst of the spreading Covid-19 pandemic - the governments of South Africa and India submitted a request to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to temporarily suspend patents. A request guided by global principles. Whilst more than 100 countries, mainly from the Global South, supported the request, the majority of industrialised nations sought to defend economic interests instead of health imperatives, rejecting the request. A compromise proposal has since been put on the table, negotiated by the EU, the US, India and South Africa. Spoiler: It falls drastically short of the aim of global vaccine equity.

• medico international

"While the Russian invasion of Ukraine has upended trade diplomacy at the WTO in recent days, the TRIPS waiver discussions have proceeded among a small group of members and is likely nearing a compromise, although differences persist. Sources familiar with the process told us that technical deliberations among the quad that includes the US, the EU, India and South Africa, are now nearing completion."

• Geneva Health Files

"Dear members of the INB Bureau - as you start your mandate as leaders of the newly constituted Intergovernmental Negotiating Body to draft and negotiate a WHO convention, agreement or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response (INB), allow us to submit for your attention a set of critical issues that, in our sense, deserve to be taken into serious consideration at this early stage of the INB process. We represent a broad constituency of civil society organizations that have a long history of engagement in the WHO global health agenda. Some of us have been and still are very active in treaty-making processes, including significant efforts in the past towards including foundational accountability and transparency principles and requisite provisions in the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) proceedings at the WHO."

• Geneva Global Health Hub

"The first session of the newly constituted Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) to draft a “pandemic preparedness instrument” for the World Health Organization (WHO) began on Monday. The six-member body, representing all WHO regions, is made up of Precious Matsoso (South Africa), Roland Driece (the Netherlands), Ambassador Tovar da Silva Nunes (Brazil), Ahmed Salama Soliman (Egypt), Kazuho Taguchi (Japan) and Viroj Tangcharoensathien (Thailand). (...) Meanwhile, almost 200 civil society leaders have asked the six negotiators to protect the process from any “undue influence of the private sector and its powerful lobbyists”. In an open letter addressed the six negotiators, the leaders have asked the INB to pay attention to a number of issues."

• Health Policy Watch

"As a physician, one of the hardest parts of the covid-19 pandemic was watching patients get steadily sicker and often die. At the bedside, we see past the numbers dispassionately presented on data dashboards and instead understand the real human suffering that is at the heart of a virus like SARS-CoV-2 spreading. (...) Yet when we pull back on public health protections, the ensuing harms are more heavily burdened on those who often are not in a position to adequately protect themselves. As healthcare workers, they often end up as our patients—and their stories offer examples of where our pandemic response failed."

• British Medical Journal (bmj)

"The #HealthDataPrinciples are the result of a global collaborative effort: over 200 digital health experts from 130 organisations around the world came together to develop these Principles in an inclusive, bottom-up process stewarded by Transform Health." These principles will launch on April 7th 2022, but you can already learn more about these in this #gdhub episode: Kirsten Mathieson, Policy Lead at ,Transform Health, is providing insights into the development of the ‘Health Data Governance Principals’, a set of globally unifying, human rights-based Health Data Governance Principles that can provide a common vision for health data governance. Hosted by Cléo Schwerzmann (gdhub)."

• gdhub Voices
• Transform Health

"For many people, a mobile phone is the first thing we reach for to check medical symptoms, find a clinic, or look up medication side effects. But where does this intimate data go after we type it into the phone? Does it go to a foreign company, a government agency, or some third party? Do we really know what autonomy we give up when we “accept cookies”? In fact, most of us are not too sure, even as we become increasingly dependent on phones – and in fact, even when we think we have opted out of data sharing, we may be mistaken. The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation, generating billions from personal data, but has also left most people in the dark about how our data is used. We are transparent to tech companies, but they are not transparent to us. To counter these and other epistemic inequalities in the digital transformation, we need new models of knowledge production that crack open this closed system, educating and empowering the public to advocate for rights-based digital governance."

• Graduate Institute Geneva - Global Health Centre