Archive for December 18th, 2022

18/12/2022

Global Cholera Surge Likely Accelerated by Climate Change, Warns World Health Organization

Human Wrongs Watch

(UN News)* — Climate change has driven an “unprecedented” number of larger and more deadly cholera outbreaks around the world this year, the UN health agency, WHO, said on Friday [].

With the support of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Haiti received around 1.17 million doses of oral cholera vaccines as cases continue to rise in the country.
© WHO-PAHO | With the support of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Haiti received around 1.17 million doses of oral cholera vaccines as cases continue to rise in the country.

“The map is under threat (from cholera) everywhere,” said Dr. Philippe Barboza, from the World Health Organization, speaking in Geneva, via Zoom.

Available data points to cases of infection in around 30 countries, whereas in the previous five years, fewer than 20 countries reported infections, on average.

18/12/2022

As Biodiversity Degrades, Nature’s Solutions Are Lost for Ever

Human Wrongs Watch

Humanity faces unprecedented engineering challenges if it is to survive. Solutions to these challenges are waiting to be discovered in plants, animals, and microbes, but these could be lost forever, if we do not preserve the rich diversity of life on Earth.

UNDP: Nature has inspired a wide range of engineering solutions

The UN biodiversity conference, COP15, is due to wrap up on 19 December. This weekend, we are looking at some of the ways that humanity is reliant on biodiversity for a healthy and thriving global ecosystem.

When a species goes extinct, it takes with it all of the physical, chemical, biological, and behavioural attributes that have been selected for that species, after having been tested and re-tested in countless evolutionary experiments over many thousands, and perhaps millions, of years of evolution.

 

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