UN team aids Samoa response to deadly measles epidemic

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6 December 2019
Health
UN teams are on the ground in Samoa as the country combats a deadly measles epidemic. So far, there have been more than 4,200 cases and 62 deaths, mainly babies, prompting authorities to declare a state of emergency on 15 November and launch a mass vaccination campaign five days later.
Simona Marinescu, UN Resident Coordinator in the Pacific island nation, reported that the situation remains critical, as the Government commenced a two-day shutdown on Thursday to ensure that all people who have not been vaccinated are protected against the highly contagious disease.
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Rise in Caribbean children displaced by storms shows climate crisis is a child rights issue: UNICEF

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6 December 2019
Climate Change
The number of Caribbean children displaced by storms has risen approximately six-fold in the past five years, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reveals in a new report released on Friday.
Catastrophic tropical cyclones and hurricanes uprooted an estimated 761,000 children in the region between 2014 and 2018, which also was the hottest five-year period on record.
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Plants, the ‘core basis for life on Earth’, under increasing threat, warns UN food agency

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Plants, which make up 80 percent of the food we eat, and produce 98 percent of the oxygen we breathe, are “under constant and increasing threat from pests and diseases”, the UN food agency, FAO, warned on Tuesday, at an event at the agency’s headquarters in Rome, to designate 2020 as the International Year of Plant Health.

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Bridging the education gap in Bangladesh | UNICEF

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“If this school didn’t exist, I wouldn’t be here… I would be forced to work,” Mohammed, 13, says. Mohammed attends an ability-based learning school in Shyamnagar, Bangladesh supported by UNICEF’s Let Us Learn initiative.

Many children in Bangladesh are out of school because they never enrolled or dropped out, largely due to poverty and child labour.

UN rights chief calls for dialogue to prevent conflict, ease social unrest in Ecuador

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The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, on Friday denounced the “high human cost”, of the recent unrest in Ecuador and urged all actors in the South American country to engage in dialogue to prevent new conflicts and forge an inclusive society “with full respect for its multicultural nature”.

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