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WHO calls for higher taxes on alcohol, sugary drinks
Deutsche Welle
06 Dec 2023, 17:58
The World Health Organization has called on governments worldwide to increase taxes on alcohol and sugary drinks in order to drastically curb the number of people dying from drinking and unhealthy diets.
The World Health Organization (WHO) called on governments around the world to increase taxes on alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs).
After studying taxation rates, the WHO said Tuesday that it believes the average global tax rate on "unhealthy products" was too low, while items such as wine are completely exempt from tax in some European countries.
Can taxes reduce deaths?
According to the WHO, 2.6 million people die from drinking alcohol and 8 million people die due to unhealthy diets every year.
The UN health agency said higher taxes would help reduce consumption of the products and incentivize companies to make healthier products.
"Taxing unhealthy products creates healthier populations. It has a positive ripple effect across society, less disease and debilitation and revenue for governments to provide public services," said Rüdiger Krech, the WHO's health promotion director. "In the case of alcohol, taxes also help prevent violence and road traffic injuries."
The WHO added that while 108 of its 194 member states already impose some taxes on SSBs, they account for an average of just 6.6% of the price of soda.
Half of those countries, the WHO noted, also tax water, which is not recommended by the UN agency.
WHO: Less cheap booze means fewer alcohol-related deaths
The WHO said minimum pricing alongside taxation could curb consumption of cheap alcohol and reduce drink-related hospitalizations, deaths, traffic violations and crimes.
"A significant body of research has demonstrated that people who engage in heavy episodic drinking tend to drink the cheapest available alcoholic beverages," the WHO said. "However, wine is exempted from excise taxes in at least 22 countries, most of which are in the European region."
Do alcohol taxes hit poorest hardest?
Globally, on average, the tax on the price of the most sold brand of beer is 17.2%, while for the most sold brand of the most sold type of spirits, it is 26.5%, the WHO reported.
While the drinks industry often cites alcohol taxes as affecting the poorest communities hardest, the WHO countered that such a view ignores the "disproportionate harm per litre for alcohol consumers in lower socioeconomic groups."
"A pressing concern is that alcoholic beverages have, over time, consistently become more affordable," WHO Assistant Director-General Ailan Li said. "But increasing affordability can be curbed using well-designed alcohol tax and pricing policies."
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Nobel Prize in Medicine 2024 / Victor Ambros, Gary Ruvkun Win for MicroRNA Discovery
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for 2024 has been awarded to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for the discovery of microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene regulation.
The winners for medicine are selected by the Nobel Assembly of Sweden's Karolinska Institute Medical University and receive a prize sum of 11 million Swedish crowns ($1.1 million).
As every year, the medicine prize is the first in the crop of Nobels, arguably the most prestigious prizes in science, literature, and humanitarian endeavor, with the remaining five set to be unveiled over the coming days.
The information in our chromosomes acts like an instruction manual for all our cells. While every cell contains the same genes, different cell types, like muscle and nerve cells, have unique characteristics. This happens through gene regulation, where each cell activates only the genes it needs.
Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun were curious about how different cell types form. They discovered microRNAs, tiny RNA molecules that play a key role in gene regulation. Their discovery introduced a new concept in gene regulation, now known to be crucial for multicellular organisms, including humans. The human genome contains over a thousand microRNAs, which are essential for development and function.
"This year's Nobel Prize focuses on the discovery of a vital regulatory mechanism used in cells to control gene activity. Genetic information flows from DNA to messenger RNA (mRNA), via a process called transcription, and then on to the cellular machinery for protein production. There, mRNAs are translated so that proteins are made according to the genetic instructions stored in DNA.," The Nobel Prize release read.
Who Won The Nobel Prize in Medicine?
Victor Ambros was born in 1953 in Hanover, New Hampshire, USA. He earned his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1979 and continued there as a postdoctoral researcher until 1985. In 1985, he became a Principal Investigator at Harvard University. From 1992 to 2007, he served as a Professor at Dartmouth Medical School, and he is currently the Silverman Professor of Natural Science at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, MA.
Gary Ruvkun was born in 1952 in Berkeley, California, USA. He received his PhD from Harvard University in 1982, followed by postdoctoral work at MIT from 1982 to 1985. In 1985, he became a Principal Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where he is now a Professor of Genetics.
The prestigious award is given annually by the Nobel Assembly consisting of 50 professors at Karolinska Institutet, recognizing personnel who have made significant contributions to the field of medicine for the benefit of humankind.
The 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Katalin Kariko, and Drew Weissman for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against Covid-19.
The Nobel Prize announcements are a highly anticipated event every October, with committees convening in Stockholm and Oslo to reveal the laureates.
Since its inception in 1901, the Nobel Prize has been awarded to scientists who have made the most important discoveries for the benefit of humankind.
When the inventor, entrepreneur, and businessman Alfred Nobel died, his will stated that his fortune was to be used to reward "those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind."
Source: India Today
HIV Treatment Breakthroughs: Namibia's Success Story
Namibia has made significant strides in stemming the spread of HIV and AIDS through education and prevention. However, for people like Anna Engomba, the arrival of new, life-saving medication cannot come quickly enough.
Anna Engomba found out she had HIV, the virus that can lead to AIDS, in 2006. Due to the stigma surrounding the infection at the time, she did not want to share this life-changing diagnosis with anyone, not even her mother.
"When you see people talking there, you will think that maybe they are talking about you. You will think that everyone knows that you are HIV positive," the 39-year-old Namibian told DW, "I was just alone."
She told DW that she became pregnant and gave birth in 2009.
"I dropped out of school, and this stopped my education. At that time, it was not even easy to get medication," she said, fighting back tears.
Engomba is just one of around 40 million people who have HIV, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) — almost 26 million of whom live in the WHO's Africa region.
In the 1990s, many people considered an HIV diagnosis a death sentence because of the limited available treatment options.
Namibia's progress in HIV treatment
While the number of people with HIV remains high, treatment and preventative medications have made significant gains, especially in Namibia.
Antiretroviral drugs, for instance, which suppress the virus and prevent it from replicating, are successfully used to treat HIV infection.
"Many HIV-positive women who have become pregnant have opted for getting preventative therapy so that the virus is not transmitted to the unborn babies," Alfred Besa, an expert on HIV/AIDS and a consultant with the NGO Humana People to People, told DW.
HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death in Namibia. About 230,000 people have HIV and AIDS in a nation of just around 3 million.
But Namibia's community-based HIV education and prevention schemes have received credit for slowing down infection rates by 54% between 2010 and 2022 according to UNAIDS, the United Nations' main agency working on the disease.
"Namibia is on the verge of eliminating the transmission of HIV from mother to child. I mean, what else can you wish for?" he added.
Anna Engomba, for instance, has three children, and due to advancements in preventing mother-to-child transmission, she said her children are all HIV-negative.
Promising HIV vaccine research
At the 2024 International AIDS Conference in Munich, researchers presented promising results from ongoing studies. Germline targeting, for instance, trains the immune system to generate several types of HIV broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs), which are crucial for a preventive vaccine.
But in terms of HIV prevention, there is already another groundbreaking drug called Lenacapavir. The anti-HIV compound is already in use, but getting the drug to those who need it most could prove tricky.
"People with economic value to countries have been lost and you have orphans. You have families getting affected because the breadwinner is no more," said Besa.
A game changer in HIV prevention?
This month, US-based biopharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences said it had signed licensing deals with six drugmakers to produce and sell generic versions of its HIV prevention medicine in 120 lower-income countries.
Gilead also plans to provide its branded version of the drug, Lenacapavir, in 18 countries, such as Botswana, Ethiopia, and Kenya, until they set up manufacturing capacity and can fully support demand. These countries represent about 70% of HIV cases.
Crucially, researchers estimated that Lenacapavir — which costs patients more than $40,000 (around €37,000) per person a year in several countries — could be manufactured for as little as $40.
Another benefit is that the drug only needs to be injected twice a year, making it much easier to administer than current regimens that require daily pills. For Engomba, this particular aspect would be a game changer, and not just for the ease of taking the medication.
"It would take away some of the stigma of the disease," she told DW.
Global push for Lenacapavir to curb HIV transmission
Liverpool University researcher Andrew Hill told media that if the drug was given to people at high risk of contracting HIV, it could "basically shut down HIV transmission." International health agency Unitaid, hosted by the WHO in Geneva, said it was "prepared to invest immediately and collaborate to fast-track access to? Lenacapavir."
Licensees include companies in India and Pakistan, according to Gilead. Based on data from its trials, Gilead said it is beginning a series of regulatory filings by the end of 2024.
"The agreements were signed in advance of any global regulatory submissions to enable these countries to quickly introduce generic versions of Lenacapavir for HIV prevention if approved," it added, referring to the six licensing deals.
The company is also prioritizing registration in 18 high-incidence countries including Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Thailand, and Vietnam, to provide Gilead-supplied Lenacapavir until generic versions are available.
LGBTQ+ people still at risk
But girls and young women, sex workers, men who have sex with men, and transgender Namibians are among the population groups still at high risk for HIV. A recent UNAIDS survey showed the HIV prevalence rate stands at 29.9% for sex workers in eastern and southern Africa.
While there is no comprehensive data on transgender women's risks in Namibia, globally they are 20 times more at risk than the general population between the ages of 15 and 49, according to figures from UNAIDS.
Friedel Dausab, a Namibian activist who successfully challenged the criminalization of same-sex sexual activity in Namibia, said stigma is still a major obstacle to life-saving treatment for marginalized people, such as those who identify as LGBTQ+.
"Even though Namibia has free services and medications, if people can't get them, then it's almost like having a beautiful car without the key to drive it," he told the Thompson Reuters Foundation.
6.2 Million Girls to Receive Cervical Cancer Vaccine
The government has launched an initiative to administer the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine to prevent cervical cancer among adolescent girls. As part of this effort, free vaccinations will begin on Thursday (October 24) across seven divisions, excluding Dhaka.
At a national advocacy meeting on the 2024 HPV Vaccination Campaign, held on Tuesday (October 22) at the InterContinental Hotel in Dhaka, officials shared these details.
Last year, the first phase of the campaign began in Dhaka Division, covering approximately 1.5 million girls. This year’s second phase will expand to all districts, upazilas, city corporations, and municipalities in Chattogram, Rajshahi, Khulna, Barishal, Sylhet, Rangpur, and Mymensingh. Girls aged 10-14 can receive the vaccine at educational institutions and EPI centers.
The campaign will run for 18 days, aiming to vaccinate 6,212,532 girls. Registration is required on the website www.vaxepi.gov.bd using a 17-digit birth registration number.
UNICEF Country Representative Emma Brigham emphasized the importance of protecting young girls' health and rights, calling the campaign a significant step for millions of girls in Bangladesh.
WHO Deputy Representative Dr. Rajesh Narwal highlighted the preventability of cervical cancer, stating, “This campaign is not only crucial for prevention but also for achieving elimination by 2030.”
Senior Secretary of the Health Services Division, M.A. Akmal Hossain Azad, expressed hope that collaboration among all stakeholders will ensure the campaign’s success.
The meeting was chaired by Dr. Md. Abu Jafar, Director General of the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS), with other key officials from health, education, and family planning sectors in attendance.
AI Listens for Diabetes: Detecting Disease in 10 Seconds Flat
In the age of artificial intelligence (AI), many tasks have become easier. A recent study shows that AI can detect Type-2 diabetes just by analyzing a person’s voice. It is now possible to determine whether someone has diabetes using AI-powered voice analysis.
The study was published in Digital Health, a journal by the Mayo Clinic. For women, AI was able to accurately detect diabetes with an 86% success rate, the same as for men. The research involved 267 participants, both diabetic and non-diabetic.
Over a two-week period, each participant's voice was recorded six times a day. With just a 10-second voice sample, the AI system could identify individuals with diabetes. Often, elevated blood sugar levels show no visible symptoms, making early detection challenging. By the time diabetes is diagnosed, the blood sugar level may have already crossed the danger threshold.
However, the simplicity of using AI to diagnose diabetes has sparked discussions.
Ian Fosat, one of the researchers involved in the study, remarked, “This voice-based diabetes detection is like a breakthrough. We are also exploring whether this voice technology can be used to diagnose other diseases.”
