Based on air pollution levels, Kathmandu has been ranked as the fourth most polluted city in the world. Currently, the air quality in Nepal’s capital is considered poor, with PM2.5 levels of 184 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m3) at 9:45 a.m. PM2.5, the primary airborne pollutant less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, poses a serious health risk, according to data from global air quality reporting organization IQ AirVisual.

KATHMANDU, Jan 24: Saima Wazed has been appointed as the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for South-East Asia by the WHO Executive Board in Geneva, Switzerland.

KATHAMNDU, Dec 1: Health experts have pointed out that Nepal is also at the potential risk of the respiratory disease that has been spreading among Chinese children over the past two weeks. International media have reported that hospitals are full of patients with the disease, which has spread to the surrounding areas of Beijing. The disease and its cause have remained unidentified.

KATHMANDU, Oct 30: The World Health Organization (WHO) South East Asia Region has resolved to integrate the typhoid vaccine into the national immunization schedule. This decision, reached during a meeting held on Monday, is part of a concerted effort to eliminate typhoid in Nepal.

KATHMANDU, Oct 1: The Government of Nepal has fielded the country's senior public health expert Dr Shambhu Prasad Acharya for the post of Southeast Asia Regional Director of the World Health Organization (WHO).

KATHMANDU, Sept 6: Around 42,100 people die of the diseases caused by air pollution every year in Nepal. The Health Effects Institute Annual report of Global Air 2022 underscores the global increase in non-communicable diseases due to the effects of air pollution.

KATHMANDU, August 7: Nepal has fielded Dr Shambhu Acharya for the post of South East Asia Regional Director of the World Health Organization (WHO).

GENEVA, Aug 1: Only four countries -- Brazil, Mauritius, the Netherlands and Turkey -- have adopted all the anti-tobacco measures recommended in the fight against the "deadly scourge" of smoking, the World Health Organization said Monday.

GENEVA, March 18: The Covid-19 pandemic could settle down this year to a point where it poses a threat similar to flu, the World Health Organization said Friday.

LONDON, Jan 11: Countries should consider recommending that passengers wear masks on long-haul flights, given the rapid spread of the latest Omicron subvariant of COVID-19 in the United States, World Health Organization (WHO) officials said on Tuesday.

KATHMANDU, Jan 2: Nepal is waiting for the World Health Organization (WHO)'s decision to use the existing stock of the Sinovac vaccine against COVID-19 infection.

Oct 19 (Reuters) - The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that COVID-19 remains a global emergency, nearly three years after it was first declared as one.

World Asthma Day is observed on the first Tuesday of May every year. It is organized by the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA), a World Health Organization collaborative organization founded in 1993. The day is observed to increase awareness about asthma and its management across the world. World Asthma Day 2022 is observed on May 3. The theme for this year's Asthma Day is 'Closing Gaps in Asthma Care’.

KATHMANDU, April 22: Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus paid a courtesy call on President Bidya Devi Bhandari this morning.

It depends. Most coronavirus patients have mild to moderate illness and recover quickly. Older, sicker patients tend to take longer to recover. That includes those who are obese, or have high blood pressure and other chronic diseases.

GENEVA , July 8:The World Health Organization on Tuesday acknowledged “evidence emerging” of the airborne spread of the novel coronavirus, after a group of scientists urged the global body to update its guidance on how the respiratory disease passes between people.

GENEVA, June 9: New coronavirus cases had their biggest daily increase ever as the pandemic worsens globally and has yet to peak in central America, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday, urging countries to press on with efforts to contains the virus.

GENEVA/WASHINGTON, April 16: The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday he regrets U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to pull funding for the agency, but that now is the time for the world to unite in its fight against the new coronavirus.

KATHMANDU, April 7: As Nepal braces for employing Rapid Diagnostic Test (RDT) kits to detect Covid-19 cases in three districts, the World Health Organization (WHO) Nepal office has said that these kits are not reliable for the confirmation of the disease.

KATHMANDU, April 5: Although the World Health Organization has been urging the countries across the globe to 'test, test, test' in order to control the possible outbreak of COVID-19, the government of Nepal has only tested around 850 suspects in the last 12 days since the lockdown was imposed on March 24.

KATHMANDU, April 5: The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF on Friday announced an agreement to work together on COVID-19 response, through the historic COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund powered by the United Nations Foundation and Swiss Philanthropy Foundation.

BEIJING, March 26: China’s control of the coronavirus outbreak continues to improve and the country will keep offering anti-epidemic support globally to the best of its ability, state media cited President Xi Jinping as saying in a letter to the World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday.

TAIPEI, March 24: Taiwan accused the World Heath Organization of ignoring its questions at the start of the coronavirus outbreak, part of what it has long described as a pattern that puts it at risk because of Chinese pressure to exclude it from international bodies.

Pandemic perceptions

March 20, 2020 09:29 am

The coronavirus pandemic has become the topic of possibly all conversations, be it at the dinner table, the office or elsewhere. The Covid-19 outbreak was first identified in Wuhan, Hubei, China in December 2019 and declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020. Since then, there has been a lot of misinformation on it that has led to widespread panic and even racism. We asked a few people how they are dealing with it.

Combating misinformation

March 18, 2020 10:16 am

The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11 after over 118,000 cases of coronavirus were detected in over 110 countries. Though there has not been an outbreak of coronavirus in Nepal, Nepal will face challenges in containing the outbreak, if it occurs. Densely populated cities, inadequate health infrastructure and very few public health initiatives from concerned stakeholders are some of the challenges. Since Nepal does not have adequate health technology to combat the virus, it can create a huge panic if it enters Nepal.

Threat of COVID-19

March 17, 2020 09:24 am

People across the world were planning and preparing to welcome and celebrate New Year. Following the detection of several respiratory illness cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the first case of COVID-19 on 31 December 2019 in Wuhan city of China.  This not only altered the plans and programs of the New Year celebration across China but also posed threat to Chinese health system as the number of cases surged.  Subsequently, considering the speed and spread of the virus, WHO on January 31, announced global emergency in the global health system.

KATHMANDU, March 12: While some people believe that myths about coronavirus (COVID-19) have triggered unfounded fears about its spread, many argue that these myths have rather influenced people to take better preventive measures.

23 QAs on COVID-19

March 10, 2020 17:00 pm

Amid misconceptions among the public regarding this deadly virus, the World Health Organization (WHO) has published some Question-Answers. Here are those FAQs:

KATHMANDU, March 7: The novel coronavirus is continuing its spread in many countries around the world. Amid coronavirus outbreak, the World Health Organization has listed ten things that people should be taking to get ready:

KATHMANDU, March 7: During a daily press briefing on Feb 28, the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, hailed Nepal for its efforts in containing the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19). “Countries including China, Singapore, Nepal and Vietnam have shown that containment measures can work,” the WHO chief said.

BEIJING, Feb 21: A viral outbreak that began in China has infected more than 76,000 people globally. The World Health Organization has named the illness COVID-19, referring to its origin late last year and the coronavirus that causes it.

KATHMANDU, March 5: The main opposition Nepali Congress (NC) has decided not to hold any big gatherings, meetings and conventions of the party until further notice in view of the coronavirus outbreak in various countries.

GENEVA, Feb 25: The World Health Organization (WHO) called on countries on Tuesday to boost their readiness against coronavirus, saying the virus is “literally knocking at the door”.

A viral outbreak that began in China has infected more than 80,000 people globally. The World Health Organization has named the illness COVID-19, referring to its origin late last year and the coronavirus that causes it.

TAIPEI, Feb 18: Taiwan urged the World Health Organization on Tuesday not to be “kidnapped” by China, as more countries put travel curbs on its citizens because the health agency groups the island’s coronavirus cases with China in the battle on the outbreak.

When Viruses Turn Political

February 16, 2020 11:40 am

OXFORD – Before the coronavirus exploded into the news, a report by the World Health Organization warned that the world was not prepared for “a fast-moving, virulent respiratory pathogen pandemic” that could kill 50-80 million people, cause panic and instability, and seriously affect the global economy and trade. The experience of the last 200-plus years has shown that only governments acting in concert can effectively fight such a pandemic—and even then, only with the trust and compliance of their citizens. This points to three challenges facing political leaders in the fight against the new coronavirus, now known as COVID-19.

KATHMANDU, Jan 31: The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged South Asian countries including Nepal to remain vigilant and strengthen readiness to rapidly detect any case of importation of the new coronavirus and prevent its spread.

BEIJING, Jan 28: The head of the World Health Organization said on Tuesday he is confident in China’s ability to contain a new coronavirus that has killed 106 people and he called for calm, saying he did not think foreigners should be evacuated, Chinese media reported.

SHANGHAI, Jan 26: More than 2,000 people globally have been infected with a new coronavirus, the vast majority of them in China, where 56 people have died from the disease, according to figures released on Sunday.

MANILA, Sept 25: The Philippines risks having more cases of polio unless it sharply steps up its vaccinations of children under 5 years of age, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday.

KATHMANDU, Sept 6: World Health Organization has urged its member states in the South-East Asia region to accelerate efforts to eliminate cervical cancer by 2030.

KATHMANDU, Sept 5: Member countries of WHO South-East Asia Region on Wednesday pledged to strengthen emergency preparedness capacities by scaling up risk assessment, increasing investments, and enhancing implementation of multi-sectoral plans.

CAIRO, Aug 5: The United Nations investigators assembled in the departure hall of Sanaa’s airport were preparing to leave with precious evidence: laptops and external drives collected from the staff of the World Health Organization.

Silent suffering

May 3, 2019 09:29 am

There’s a suicide prevention helpline in Nepal that’s a direct line to the psychiatry ward in Teaching Hospital in Maharajgunj, Kathmandu. On-duty psychiatrists at the ward attend to this helpline and each week at least a couple of calls come in. Some weeks, the phone rings everyday.

Speaking at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, during an event to launch the Day, the WHO chief said that all people deserve access to health services, “when and where they need them, without financial hardship.”

JAN 23: 6 things to know by 6 PM today

January 23, 2019 18:00 pm

Your daily dose of missed important news of the day.

A new World Health Organization study of refugee and migrant flows in Europe found that these groups have a lower risk of almost all forms of cancer but are more vulnerable to communicable diseases including vaccine-preventable diseases and antimicrobial resistance.

Aging population and urbanization are two global trends that together comprise major forces shaping the 21st century. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that “average life expectancy at birth in 1955 was just 48 years; in 1995 it was 65 years; in 2025 it will reach 73 years”.

Your daily dose of missed important news of the day.

“Heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, chronic Lyme disease, depression” – just some of the illnesses outlined by World Health Organization (WHO) chief Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus, who drove home the danger by asking delegates to stand up, when they heard the name of an illness that had killed someone they loved: One by one, every single person in the room, got to their feet.