Global Happenings
A new WHO and UNICEF report reveals significant gaps in essential water, sanitation, hygiene and environmental health services in health-care facilities worldwide. Reportedly, only four in ten facilities meet basic sanitation standards and less than six in ten achieve basic environmental cleaning standards such patient rooms and wards, operating theatres, examination and treatment areas, toilets and sanitation facilities, leaving patients and health workers exposed to preventable health risks.
ICMR and UNICEF have called for strengthening nutrition education from Classes 1–12 to address the growing burden of childhood obesity in India. The recommendation emphasizes equipping children with practical knowledge about healthy eating, balanced diets, physical activity, and informed food choices. Schools can play a crucial role in shaping lifelong healthy behaviours by integrating age-appropriate nutrition education into the curriculum.
The World Health Organization (WHO) urges countries to strengthen breastfeeding support through resilient health systems, skilled counselling, and supportive workplace and community policies. Improving breastfeeding practices helps ensure every child receives optimal nutrition, boosts immunity, supports healthy growth and development, and reduces the risk of illness and malnutrition from the earliest stages of life.
A new UN report says global hunger has declined for the third year in a row, showing gradual recovery after recent crises. However, progress remains uneven, with hunger worsening in parts of Africa and Western Asia. The report urges stronger action to reduce regional inequalities and achieve global food security.
The first global estimates of breast cancer survival reveal major disparities across regions and income levels. Women in high-income countries generally have much higher survival rates due to earlier diagnosis and better treatment access, while low- and middle-income countries experience poorer outcomes, highlighting urgent needs for equitable healthcare, screening, and cancer care worldwide.
The WHO Global Status Report on Cancer 2026 highlights rising cancer cases alongside major scientific advances, but warns that unequal access to prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and care persists. It urges people-centred, equitable cancer control through stronger health systems, universal coverage, social protection, and value-driven innovation to improve outcomes for everyone worldwide.
Beat the Heat is a initiative under WHO’s Sport for Health programme, developed in collaboration with FIFA. Initiative promotes evidence-based action and capacity building. It engages governments, businesses, workers’ groups, sports bodies, mass gathering organizers, and communities in high-risk areas.
UNICEF’s Children’s Climate Risk Report 2026 reveals how children’s exposure to multiple, overlapping climate hazards, inherent physical vulnerabilities, and the gaps in the social services they rely on, undermines their rights and increases their risk of harm.
Foodborne diseases remain a major global burden, causing at least 200 illnesses that affect health, livelihoods, education and economies. The theme of World Food Safety Day 2026, From burden to solutions – safe food everywhere, highlights how data on illness, its burden and lost lives can guide action towards focused and cost-effective solutions.
WHO advises to activate National disaster/emergency management mechanisms and establish an emergency operations centre, under the authority of the Head of State and relevant government authorities, to coordinate response activities among partners and sectors to ensure efficient and effective implementation and monitoring of comprehensive Bundibugyo virus disease control measures in Congo and Uganda.