Category Health & Science

Digital Health key to Maldives reducing premature chronic diseases deaths

0 Comments read Health & Science
Abdulla Ahmed, Principal of Faafu Atoll Education Centre in Nilandhoo, Maldives, with some of the students participating in a pilot programme that has improved NCD awareness, screening, prevention and healthy-lifestyle practices. Photo Credit: © Courtesy Abdulla Ahmed

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 18.09.2026 (SciDev.Net): The Maldives has become the only country in South East Asia to meet the UN target for reducing premature deaths from non-communicable diseases (NCDs), such as cardiovascular disease, cancers, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases.

Globally, NCDs account for roughly 74 per cent of all deaths, with millions of people dying prematurely before 70 years of age. Over 80 per cent of these premature deaths occur in low-and middle-income countries.

Strengthening digital connectivity and health workforce capacity, and investing in preventive health, has been central to the Maldives’ achievement, according to public health experts who say the approach could help other small island developing states (SIDS) curb the growing disease burden.

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Sustained care critical for Gaza’s child amputees

0 Comments read Disability, Health & Science
Mohammed Akram Abu Aker longs for a functional prosthesis that will allow him to run and play football without crutches. Photo Credit: ©Courtesy of Mohammed’s parents.

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 10.06.2026 (SciDev.Net): Thousands of children in Gaza, who have undergone amputations during the war, need their prostheses modified, repaired or replaced every six to 12 months or sooner, as they grow. But with healthcare services severely strained and rehabilitation resources scarce to non-existent, specialists and aid organisations warn that young amputees face an uncertain future without sustained access to the care they need.

Eight-year-old Mohammed Akram Abu Aker’s right leg was severed in June 2025 by shrapnel from an artillery shell, just as he and his family were attempting to flee following an Israeli airstrike on a neighbour’s house in Gaza. The shrapnel penetrated multiple parts of his body, causing extensive wounds.

About 10,000 children have sustained life-changing injuries in Gaza since October 2023, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). One in five out of more than 5,000, who have undergone limb amputations, is a child.

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Low-cost fixes can ease heat stress for garment workers

0 Comments read Climate Change, Gender, Health & Science
Fahima Akter Beauty ironing clothes that have just been stitched in a ready-made garment factory in Dhaka (Bangladesh). Photo Credit: ©CARE Bangladesh

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 24.10.2025 (SciDev.Net): Simple, low-cost interventions could help reduce heat stress for the millions of people who work in garment factories in Bangladesh, where extreme temperatures make conditions unbearable, according to Australian researchers.

Climate change-led extreme heat and humidity is putting the health and earnings of garment workers in Bangladesh and other low- and middle-income countries at increasing risk, say researchers of a study led by the University of Sydney. Their study published in The Lancet Planetary Health on Monday (20 October), reveals how simple, affordable, low-carbon interventions could reduce heat stress and protect workers’ productivity and earnings in Bangladesh’s ready-made garment sector.

The industry employs over 4 million people in the country, about 60 per cent of them women, according to the International Labour Organization. Fahima Akter Beauty, a 24-year-old single mother from Ashulia suburb on the outskirts of Dhaka, has been working for three years in a factory that manufactures knitwear. She feels it is getting hotter and the heat makes her stressed and restless, leading to poor concentration, headaches and drowsiness.

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