DID YOU KNOW?
- Indian pharma and healthcare industry has supplied 60 per cent of the global Covid-19 vaccine requirements.
- AstraZeneca-Serum are currently the main suppliers to COVAX, a worldwide initiative aimed at equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines.
- Pfizer's drug Paxlovid, a combination of antiviral drugs nirmatrelvir and ritonavir tablet is most awaited in the world.
- WHO leads the collective “United Against Rabies” to drive progress towards "Zero human deaths from dog-mediated rabies by 2030.
- Over the past three years, millions of blood pressure pills that contain a probable carcinogen have been recalled around the world.
- Of the 118.5 million blood donations collected globally, 40% of these are collected in high-income countries, home to 16% of the world's population.
- A growing number of infections – such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, gonorrhoea, and salmonellosis – are becoming harder to treat as the antibiotics used to treat them become less effective.
- Researchers have estimated that each year there are 1.3 to 4.0 million cases of cholera, and 21 000 to 143 000 deaths worldwide due to cholera.
- An estimated 295,000 newborns die within 28 days of birth every year, worldwide, due to congenital anomalies – heart defects, neural tube defects and Down syndrome.
- Diarrhoeal disease is the second leading cause of death in children under five years old. Each year diarrhoea kills around 525 000 children under five.
- WHO estimates that 296 million people were living with chronic hepatitis B infection in 2019, with 1.5 million new infections each year
- Every year there are an estimated 20 million HEV (hepatitis E virus) infections worldwide, leading to an estimated 3.3 million symptomatic cases of hepatitis E.
- Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer among women globally, with an estimated 570,000 new cases in 2018.
- In 2020, there were an estimated 241 million cases of malaria worldwide. The estimated number of malaria deaths stood at 627 000 in 2020.
- Meningitis remains a major global public-health challenge with a high case fatality rate and leading to serious long-term complications.
- Mercury is considered by WHO as one of the top ten chemicals or groups of chemicals of major public health concern.
