According to the UN, 625,000 children studying in Gaza schools have no access to education since the beginning of October 2023. Top news of the day | Thursday: Ukraine, Gaza, COVID-19, monkeypox UN
Top news of the day in the UN and around the world: UN project to restore war-torn areas in southern Ukraine, new grant to support children in Gaza, “summer wave” of coronavirus, unprecedented rise in monkeypox cases in Africa.
Restoration of Ukraine
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have jointly launched a project to rehabilitate and restore war-torn areas in southern Ukraine. The initiative will help displaced people return home and live in safe conditions. The project aims to address such issues as demining areas, restoring housing and infrastructure destroyed by the fighting, and restoring identity cards and other documents. In addition, UN agencies will support government services and civil society organizations in providing legal and social services in targeted areas of southern Ukraine, in particular in the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions.
Education in Gaza
In support of global efforts to provide Palestinian children with access to education and mental health services, Education Cannot Wait announced on Thursday a $2 million grant for emergency assistance in Gaza. According to the UN, 625,000 children studying in Gaza schools have no access to education since early October 2023. More than 370 schools have been damaged in attacks. Even before the current escalation, some 800,000 children in Gaza – three-quarters of the entire child population – were already in need of psychosocial support.
COVID-19 Vaccines
From December 2020 to March 2023, COVID-19 vaccines reduced pandemic-related deaths by at least 59 per cent and saved more than 1.6 million lives in the World Health Organization (WHO) European Region, according to new WHO research that is still relevant today. Over the past few weeks, several countries in the European Region have reported a surge in cases – a “summer wave” of COVID-19. The proportion of patients with respiratory illnesses diagnosed with coronavirus in primary care has increased fivefold in the past eight weeks. The proportion of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 has also increased. People at risk still need to be vaccinated against coronavirus, the WHO emphasizes.
Monkeypox
WHO warns that since the beginning of 2024, the African Region has seen an unprecedented increase in monkeypox cases, with more countries previously unaffected by the disease reporting cases of the virus. WHO has raised its response to the highest level. In addition, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is convening a meeting of an expert emergency committee to determine whether the outbreak constitutes an emergency of international concern.