NEWS
Recent news from WHO
WHO said, on 30 January, that Zimbabwe's cholera outbreak, one of the world's largest ever recorded, was far from being under control. It said that an enhanced response was needed to reverse the epidemic that has infected more than 60 000 people and killed more than 3100 since August 2008. It called for urgent action to increase awareness, particularly at the grassroots level, with regard to prevention and treatment measures and to make more medicines available, particularly oral rehydration salts (ORS) and chlorine tablets, at community level so that health-care workers and ordinary people themselves have the means to quickly treat cases of cholera that emerge.
WHO said, on 21 January, that it had received US$ 9.7 million in grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to work with UNICEF and partners to conduct crucial research in children's medicines. The aim of this research would be to increase the number of medicines designed and formulated specifically for children. Currently, many medicines are only designed for adults.
For more about these and other WHO news items please see: http://www.who.int/mediacentre