GENEVA — Marking International Migrants Day, the United Nations reports hostility and xenophobia are growing against migrants. It warns the stigmatization and marginalization of migrants amid a raging pandemic is putting many lives at risk. U.N. agencies report one seventh of the global population, or one billion people, are on the move. This number includes a record 281 million international

The head of the World Health Organization says the continuing surge of COVID-19 cases is a result of the unequal distribution of vaccines. Speaking at the First International Conference on Public Health in Africa, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus noted that it has been just over a year since the first COVID-19 vaccines began to be administered. He said, “A

The Dutch government is holding an emergency meeting Saturday with health advisers about the fast-spreading omicron variant of the coronavirus before an expected announcement of more lockdown measures to stem its spread. The government proposed new measures Friday to curb the alarming spread of the new variant, as other European countries are moving to reimpose restrictions to contain the variant’s

African leaders have called on governments across the continent to invest more in healthcare to fight the coronavirus and future pandemics. The appeal came as the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the African Union this week held the first Conference on Public Health in Africa. Addressing the virtual meeting of African health workers and experts, Rwandan President

The head of the South African Medical Association says there is a major difference between the delta and omicron variants of the coronavirus and warns politicians against hyping the threat from the new strain. Dr. Angelique Coetzee criticized Tuesday what she described as the “over-reaction” to the heavily mutated omicron variant by some European governments and cited Britain’s Boris Johnson,

A new study out of South Africa shows that Pfizer’s two-dose COVID-19 vaccine provides a high degree of protection against hospitalization from the fast-spreading omicron variant. The real-world study, conducted by the South African Medical Research Council and Discovery Health, the country’s largest private health insurance administrator, was based on more than 211,000 positive COVID-19 test results between November 15

The disfiguring disease noma, found mainly in poor areas of sub-Saharan Africa that lack health care, kills 90% of victims, most of them children, when left untreated. Noma is preventable, and to that end, aid groups are urging the World Health Organization to add Noma to its list of neglected tropical diseases. Eight-year-old Amadou Compaore recently recovered from noma, a

Villagers in Cameroon’s conflicted Northwest region claim military troops searching for rebels this past week killed at least 13 civilians, including children. Cameroon’s military denies the allegations. Cameroonian government officials and non-governmental organizations say several dozen civilians have fled Mbengwi, a commercial town in the English-speaking Northwest region to safer localities, including Bamenda, capital of the English-speaking Northwest region; Bafoussam,

For the second time in a matter of days, food aid for starving Ethiopians has been stolen from the World Food Program in northern Ethiopia, the United Nations said Monday. “On the evening of December 10th, a group of armed actors – believed to be either from the Ethiopian National Defense Forces or an affiliated allied military force – entered

The U.N. refugee agency says intercommunal fighting over scarce resources in Cameroon has triggered the mass exodus of more than 30,000 refugees to neighboring Chad. Deadly clashes erupted December 5 in the Cameroonian border village of Ouloumsa following a dispute between herders, fishermen and farmers over dwindling water resources. Violence then spread to neighboring villages, where intercommunal rivals burned 10