WHO updates COVID-19 guidelines on masks, treatments and patient care
The World Health Organization continues to recommend mask use by the public after recent exposure to COVID-19, when someone has or is suspected of having the disease, is at high risk of severe COVID-19, and for anyone in a crowded, enclosed, or poorly ventilated space.
Likewise, it advises that a patient with COVID-19 can leave isolation early if they test negative in a rapid test based on an antigen test.
For patients with symptoms and without access to testing, new guidelines suggest ten days of self-isolation from the date of onset of symptoms.
For those who test positive for COVID-19 but have no signs or symptoms of the disease, the agency now suggests five days of isolation, up from the previous 10 days.
Finally, it broadens the use of the drug “Paxlovid” and indicates that pregnant or lactating women with non-severe COVID-19 should consult with their doctor to determine if they should take this drug, due to its “probable benefits” and the no adverse effects reported
Greece: UN calls for charges against those who helped migrants to be dropped
After a trial against 24 activists accused of helping to rescue migrants in danger at sea began last Tuesday in Greece, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights called for all charges against the defendants to be dropped.
Volker Turk’s spokeswoman stated that “trials like these are very disturbing” as they “criminalize the work of saving lives and set a dangerous precedent.”
He added that they also produce “an intimidating effect” forcing human rights defenders and humanitarian organizations to interrupt their work in defense of fundamental guarantees in Greece and other countries of the European Union.
The defendants were members or volunteers of a Greek NGO that saved and provided medical assistance to more than 1,000 people on the Greek island of Lesbos between 2016 and 2018. Since then, the organization has ended its operations, while the defendants have spent more than four years facing the possibility of going to trial.
Ending food crises calls for massive investment in agriculture and rural development
On the eve of the annual meeting of world leaders to be held in Davos next week, the president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), warns of the urgent need to carry out large and rapid investments in rural development to avoid repeated food crises and end hunger and poverty.
At this Forum, Álvaro Lario will ask governments, investors and private companies to greatly increase investments in agriculture and rural development in the long term, to guarantee nutritional security and food independence, a critical issue for developing countries.
Research shows that future crop yields could decline by as much as 25% by the end of the century, due to the increase in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. In addition, more than 35% of the world’s cultivated land for wheat and rice production could be subject to damaging heat waves by 2050.
Smallholder farmers, who produce a third of the world’s food, receive less than 2% of global climate finance.
Mexican actor Luis Gerardo Méndez, new UNHCR goodwill ambassador
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) announced this Thursday the appointment of renowned Mexican actor and producer, Luis Gerardo Méndez, as goodwill ambassador.
Last year he traveled, Méndez traveled with the agency to Tapachula, a border city in southern Mexico that receives 7 out of 10 asylum applications in the country, where he met with refugees and visited the shelters where they are sheltered while the process is completed. of their asylum applications.
Méndez declared that being a goodwill ambassador is an “honor and a privilege” and stated that he is “convinced” that from his “trench” he will be able to “help more people understand the reality of those who have had to flee and contribute to the existence of more support for them.”
The Mexican actor will visit some cities in central and northern Mexico this year where refugees have been able to integrate successfully and will witness the efforts made by the agency in terms of internal displacement.
