24 June 2009 — Road traffic crashes around the world take the lives of 1.2 million people every year. Pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists are most at risk, finds the first global assessment of road safety.
Listen to this episode – duration 00:04:36 [mp3 2.6Mb]

Transcript of the podcast

Veronica Riemer: You’re listening to the WHO podcast, and my name is Veronica Riemer. In this episode, we review the results of the first global assessment of road safety.

Rochelle Sobl: On 3 May 1995, I received a phone call that’s every parent’s nightmare. The voice on the other end told me that my son had been killed in a bus crash in Turkey.

Adnan Hyder: Road traffic crashes around the world take the lives of over 1.2 million people each year. And between 20 and 50 million suffer non-fatal injuries. This means that approximately every second someone is injured and every 30 seconds a victim dies.

Veronica Riemer: WHO has recently published the first global status report on road safety. Funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, the report presents information from 178 countries accounting for over 98% of the world’s population. WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan spoke at the launch of the report in New York.

Dr Margaret Chan: The report gives us a very clear picture of the road traffic injuries as a global health and development problem. Can you imagine the burden on the family and on the community, on hospital services and so on, just to take care of these injured persons? I mean, it is something that is preventable and it is unacceptable that when we know what to do and yet we are not taking measures to prevent the loss of life and limbs and the suffering of so many people.

Veronica Riemer: Among the findings of the report was the fact that almost half of the estimated 1.2 million people who die in road traffic crashes every year pedestrians, motorcyclists and cyclists. Dr Etienne Krug, Director of WHO’s Injuries and Violence Prevention Department, explains.

Dr Etienne Krug: Those people are travelling on the road without the protective shell of a car. What has happened is that over the last decades, we have developed our transport policies with the car in mind. We are making roads for cars. We are making possibility to travel by car much easier, but we are forgetting pedestrians, bicyclists and motorcyclists. Those are now the ones who are becoming more and more getting killed, injured and disabled on our roads.

Veronica Riemer: This is a particular problem in lower-income and middle-income countries where the number of motor vehicles is increasing fast, without roads having been built with safety in mind. Less than 15% of all countries have comprehensive laws on seatbelts, motorcycle helmets, speed, drink-driving and child restraints. In most countries where laws exist, the enforcement is very weak. Michael Bloomberg from Bloomberg Philanthropies, which funded the study, tells us how the collected data will be used to bring about change.

Michael Bloomberg: We have the numbers, we have some demonstration projects, we have examples of how to do things, now we have got to put it into action. The next challenge is to bring it to the attention of those who can implement change and also to bring it to the attention of those who are the victims, and maybe they can demand change.

Veronica Riemer: Dr Margie Peden from WHO’s Unintentional Injuries Prevention Department says the key message should be that steps can be taken to prevent loss of lives in road crashes.

Dr Margie Peden: I think a lot of people are still fatalistic about road traffic crashes, but they are preventable and that is why we like to call them crashes, or collisions and not accidents. They are not acts of God, there are things that we can do about it. Much can be done to reverse this epidemic.

Veronica Riemer: That was Dr Margie Peden. If you would like to find out more about road safety, there are links to related information on the transcript page of this podcast episode. Look for the link to the podcast on the home page of our web site, at www.who.int

That’s all for this episode of the WHO podcast. Thanks for listening. If you have any comments on our podcast or have any suggestions for future health topics do drop us a line. Our email address is Podcast@who.int.

For the World Health Organization, this is Veronica Riemer in Geneva.

Persons with disabilities particularly vulnerable to HIV/AIDS

10 June 2009 — About 10% of the world’s population have a disability. In this episode, we look at why they are particularly vulnerable to HIV and AIDS.

Listen to this episode – duration 00:05:45 [mp3 6.6Mb]

Transcript of the podcast

Veronica Riemer: You’re listening to the WHO podcast and my name is Veronica Riemer. In this episode, we look at why persons with disabilities are particularly vulnerable to HIV and AIDS. [MUSIC]

About 10% of the world’s population have a disability. Just like any other person, many engage in behaviours which place them at risk of HIV infection, such as unprotected heterosexual or male-to-male sex and injecting drug use. However, persons with disabilities frequently have limited access to HIV education, information and prevention services. They may be turned away from community HIV education forums because of assumptions that they are not sexually active, or do not engage in other risky behaviour such as injecting drugs. Dr Susan Girois, Director of Technical Resources Division of Handicap International in Lyon, France, tells us more.

Dr Susan Girois: Once someone does have HIV, and now we are talking about access to care and support, many of the issues regarding access are difficult for people with either sensory impairment — like people with visual impairment or people who are hearing impaired — people who may have problems with physical mobility and other people who may have mental health conditions or who may have intellectual disability. Access is really key.

Veronica Riemer: Children with disabilities who are outside mainstream education miss vital sexual and reproductive health education. In some communities, low literacy levels amongst those who are disabled means they cannot read available HIV prevention information. Similarly, lack of material in Braille format means people with visual impairments cannot read this information either.

Studies have shown that a large percentage of persons with disabilities will experience sexual assault or abuse during their lifetime, with women and girls, persons with intellectual impairments and those in specialized institutions, schools or hospitals being at particularly high risk. In some cultures, persons with disabilities are raped in the belief that this will “cure” an HIV-positive individual.

Although the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities does not explicitly refer to HIV or AIDS in its definition, states are required to recognize that persons living with HIV who are exposed to stigma and discrimination, fall under the protection of the Convention. Sharon Peake, Policy Adviser for HIV/AIDS in the International Health Division of Health Canada, explains why.

Sharon Peake: People living with HIV and AIDS and persons with disabilities have many shared challenges, and there are common barriers to access, and there are shared experiences between both groups.

Veronica Riemer: There is a critical need to break down the barriers of stigma and discrimination against people with disabilities and those living with HIV/AIDS who work as professionals within the health sector. Dr Alice Wellbourn, former chair of the International Community of Women Living with HIV and AIDS explains.

Dr Alice Wellbourn: Globally, there are huge numbers of people living with HIV or with other disabilities within the health sector who daren’t reveal the disabilities that they have to their colleagues, to their managers for fear of somehow being looked down upon for having somehow failed their profession. And the great tragedy is, in South Africa for instance and other countries, year on year there is a net a reduction in the number of people in the health sector owing to AIDS-related sickness and death.

Veronica Riemer: One part of the response to this problem in South Africa is that the government has recognized that disability organizations have a role to play in providing HIV prevention, care and treatment. Counsellors with disabilities are placed in voluntary testing centres and free HIV testing is encouraged at disability meetings. Sign language interpreters are being trained in key HIV messages and are being assigned to HIV clinics. But experts say, along with care givers, everyone has a role to play in integrating persons with disabilities, as Dr Susan Girois explains.

Dr Susan Girois: If you are a care giver of someone with a disability, if you work as a professional, if you are a person with hearing impairment or visual impairment or other impairments, you also have a role to play, to be sure that anyone else is not stigmatized because they are living with HIV within your own community. We all have a role to play.

Veronica Riemer: That was Dr Susan Girois from Handicap International. If you would like to learn more about this issue, there are links to related information on the transcript page of this podcast episode. Look for the link to the podcast on the home page of our web site, at www.who.int

That’s all for this episode of the WHO podcast. Thanks for listening. If you have any comments on our podcast or have any suggestions for future health topics do drop us a line. Our email address is Podcast@who.int.

For the World Health Organization, this is Veronica Riemer in Geneva.

2 June 2009 — WHO is urging that governments require tobacco companies to put pictures on their products to make people aware of the sickness and suffering caused by tobacco use.

Listen to this episode – duration 00:05:10 [mp3 5.9Mb]

Transcript of the podcast

Veronica Riemer: Grisly, shocking pictures of a bleeding brain is probably not what you would expect to see on a consumer product. But that is what WHO is urging governments to put on packs of tobacco products. In this episode, we discuss why.

Veronica Riemer: Pick up a pack of tobacco product, and typically it tells you nothing about the true character of the deadly product within: that it causes cancer, strokes, and heart and lung disease. Tobacco products kill more than 5 million people every year. It also makes sick and disfigures many more people.

Tobacco companies invest a fortune to make the packaging of tobacco products attractive to customers. Some countries have passed laws requiring tobacco companies to put health warnings on the packs, but they are mostly limited to barely visible text.

On World No Tobacco Day this year, WHO is urging that governments require tobacco companies to put pictures on the packs to make people aware of the sickness and suffering caused by tobacco use. Susy Mercado, Regional Adviser for the Tobacco Free Initiative in WHO’s Regional office for the Western Pacific, tells us why.

Susy Mercado: Many people still do not really know the effects of tobacco use. Our work in the region has shown that many people and many policy-makers really do not know what the hazards are. And having pictorial warnings on packages is a good way of transmitting that message of danger and harm to the users of the product.

Veronica Riemer: Canada was the first country to pass laws in 2001 requiring pictorial warnings on tobacco packets. Twenty other countries have so far passed similar laws. Some of the pictures used in these countries are not without controversy. For example, a tobacco health warning in Singapore shows a blackened and sore-pocked gangrenous foot. Another in Australia shows a brain bleeding because of stroke. Some people object to the shocking and repellent nature of the pictures, but the evidence shows they work. Douglas Bettcher, Director of WHO’s Tobacco Free Initiative, explains.

Douglas Bettcher: Country after country shows that these pictorial warnings help to communicate health risks much better. We know for example that in Brazil more than half of smokers changed their opinion on the health consequences of smoking as a result of the warnings. Also, the warnings convince smokers to quit or cut down on their levels of smoking. For example, more than a quarter of smokers in Singapore said that they consume fewer cigarettes as a result of the warnings. In Canada, more than a quarter of smokers smoke less inside their home as a result of the warnings because of the greater awareness of the devastating health harms that can also be wrought upon innocent bystanders who don’t smoke themselves.

Veronica Riemer: More than 160 countries have signed up to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Article 11 of this international treaty requires the countries to put health warnings on tobacco products. Pekka Puska, President of the World Heart Federation and head of Finland’s National Public Health Institute, says that pictorial warnings are an important element of any sound tobacco control strategy.

Pekka Puska: We have to undertake comprehensive work. We need health education. We need legislation. We need smoking cessation activities. Actually, we need the different components that are outlined in the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. But the warnings in the packages, of course, are a basic element because the warnings are for smokers when they get the package. But, as I said, this is no magic bullet, but this is just one of the many steps we are taking.

Veronica Riemer: If you would like to learn more about World No Tobacco day or the WHO Tobacco Free Initiative, there are links to related information on the transcript page of this podcast episode. Look for the link to the podcast on the home page of our web site, at www.who.int

That’s all for this episode of the WHO podcast. Thanks for listening. If you have any comments on our podcast or have any suggestions for future health topics do drop us a line. Our email address is Podcast@who.int.