Rabies causes thousands of deaths every year in over 100 countries mostly affecting underserved communities with limited access to health and veterinary systems. Successful rabies control programmes comprise of three pillars: community participation; education, public awareness and access to mass vaccination of dogs; and access to post bite treatment. Countries are responding to achieve the ...read more →
20 June 2018 | Geneva −− The World Health Organization (WHO) will begin distributing a paediatric (chewable) formulation of mebendazole to countries with a high prevalence of soil-transmitted helminthiases (intestinal worms). Mebendazole is one of the medicines recommended by WHO to treat intestinal worm infections of humans. This formulation was approved by the United States ...read more →
8 June 2018 | Geneva −− Rabies is a priority zoonosis in Burkina Faso. In the capital, Ouagadougou, more than 4000 people report dog bites every year, with 60 confirmed rabies cases from 2003 to 2014. Strategies to control the disease in the past have often seemed ineffective. ©Madi Savadogo/Rabies intervention in Burkina Faso In ...read more →
8 June 2018 | Geneva — The World Health Organization (WHO) has published a training guide that aims to make it easier for health workers to identify the signs and symptoms of neglected tropical diseases of the skin and other common skin conditions through their visible characteristics. ©WHO Skin diseases are among the most common ...read more →
Biologists and other scientists use the scientific method to ask questions about the natural world. The scientific method begins with an observation, which leads the scientist to ask a question. She or he then comes up with a hypothesis, a testable explanation that addresses the question. A hypothesis isn’t necessarily right. Instead, it’s a “best guess,” and the ...read more →
A biology investigation usually starts with an observation—that is, something that catches the biologist’s attention. For instance, a cancer biologist might notice that a certain kind of cancer can’t be treated with chemotherapy and wonder why this is the case. A marine ecologist, seeing that the coral reefs of her field sites are bleaching—turning white—might ...read more →
15 January 2018 | Geneva −− The new WHO recommendations for rabies immunization supersede the 2010 WHO position on pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) for rabies. These updated recommendations are based on new evidence and directed by public health needs that are cost-, dose- and time-sparing, while assuring safety and clinical effectiveness. In ...read more →
13 July 2017 | Geneva — New data released by the World Health Organization (WHO) show a remarkable 63% increase in the number of people treated with an antibiotic for trachoma during the period 2014–2016, considerably improving prospects for the global elimination of the disease. The surge is mainly due to an expanded access to ...read more →
The domestic dog (Canis lupus familiaris when considered a subspecies of the gray wolf or Canis familiaris when considered a distinct species) is a member of the genus Canis (canines), which forms part of the wolf-like canids, and is the most widely abundant terrestrial carnivore. The dog and the extant gray wolf are sister taxa as modern wolves are not closely related to the wolves that were first domesticated, which implies that the direct ancestor of ...read more →
