The United Nations is predicting that a record 274 million people – who together would amount to the world’s fourth most-populous country – will require emergency humanitarian aid next year.

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, in its annual overview of future needs, is projecting a 17% jump in the number of people who will need urgent assistance in 2022.

“The climate crisis is hitting the world’s most vulnerable people first and worst. Protracted conflicts grind on, and instability has worsened in several parts of the world, notably Ethiopia, Myanmar and Afghanistan,” said Martin Griffiths, the head of OCHA. “The pandemic is not over, and poor countries are deprived of vaccines.”

Griffiths cited estimates by the U.N.’s Food and Agricultural Organization that 45 million people are at risk of famine, in dozens of countries.

UN projects soaring humanitarian needs in world in 2022 | AP News

 The concern over COVID-19 has eclipsed many other diseases but these such as TB and malaria still remain a pestilence upon the planet. 

We know how to prevent HIV transmission, and we have the medical know-how to keep every person living with HIV healthy. No one has to die of AIDS.

Yet there were at least 680,000 people due to AIDS-related illnesses in 2020 worldwide. In 2020 1.5 million people were newly infected with HIV. Forty years since the first AIDS cases were reported in the world HIV/AIDS still threatens. 

Our society has the ability to break the chain of transmission of HIV. Treatment as prevention – works – along with a whole collection of HIV prevention options. Inaction is unacceptable and the cause of new infections and untimely deaths to name a few. 

Lifesaving antiretroviral therapy (ART) and viral load suppression, along with the whole cascade of HIV care and support, keep them healthy and away from AIDS-related illnesses. 

“Thanks to scientific research and strong evidence that has given us tools to effectively prevent transmission of HIV, diagnose HIV, treat people living with HIV. That is why it is possible for people living with HIV who can live fulfilling normal lives…” explained Dr Ishwar Gilada, who is on the Governing Council of International AIDS Society (IAS). “We know how to beat AIDS, we know what the inequalities obstructing progress are and we know how to tackle them. The policies to address inequalities can be implemented, but they require leaders to be bold and not cold!”

When People With HIV Can Live Normal Lives Then Why 680,000 AIDS Deaths In 2020?| Countercurrents

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 For the likes of liberal progressives such as Bernie Sanders, the welfare state of “Scandinavian socialism” is frequently lauded as the aspiration of the American left-wing. 

In  2018 the richest 10 percent of Norwegians own 60 percent of the country’s wealth. 

The top 1 percent controls 21 percent of total wealth.

Statistics Norway researcher Rolf Aaberge describes the inequality figure as underestimated. 

According to Aaberge’s estimates, the top 1 percent of income earners take home 20 percent of all income. The richest 0.01 percent earn 6 percent of total income. (income and wealth are not the same.)

Despite socialised healthcare, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health noted the gulf between the life expectancy of the richest and poorest in society.

 In Oslo, life expectancy varies by up to eight years between rich and poor neighbourhoods.

Life expectancy for those with the highest education levels is five or six years more than for people with the lowest level of education.

  The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) said the number of international migrants grew to 281 million in 2020, or 3.6 percent of the global population.

That marks an increase from the 272 million international migrants counted in 2019, when they made up 3.5 percent of all people in the world.

The IOM stressed that there would have been another two million international migrants last year had it not been for the pandemic, which made it far more complicated to move across borders.

“We are witnessing a paradox not seen before in human history,” IOM chief Antonio Vitorino said in a statement.

“While billions of people have been effectively grounded by Covid-19, tens of millions of others have been displaced within their own countries.”

Some 40.5 million people were living as internally displaced at the end of 2020, up from 31.5 million a year earlier.

UN says international migration rose last year despite Covid-19 impact (france24.com)

 The number of hungry people in Latin America and the Caribbean has risen by 30 percent since 2019.

 59 million people across the region currently are not getting enough to eat, an increase of 13.8 million people in just one year.

More than nine percent of people across Latin America and the Caribbean are going hungry.

Along with the people who are going hungry in absolute terms, four out of every 10 people in Latin America and the Caribbean – 267 million people – experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2020, said the UN report. That is 60 million more people than in 2019.

In 2020, 41.8 percent of women in the region experienced moderate or severe food insecurity, compared with more than 32 percent of men.

 A coalition of United Nations agencies called the situation “critical”.

“We must say it loud and clear: Latin America and the Caribbean is facing a critical situation in terms of food security,” Julio Berdegue, a regional representative with the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), said. “There has been an almost 79 percent hike in the number of people living in hunger from 2014 to 2020.”

The coronavirus pandemic has “exacerbated the situation”, added Rossana Polastri, regional director of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the UN’s agricultural bank.

In Brazil, the region’s largest and most populous country, some 19 million people have gone hungry during the pandemic, according to a study published earlier this year, while nearly 117 million – more than half the country’s population – live with some level of food insecurity.

Globally, 11 people die from hunger every minute, according to a July report from Oxfam, which found the number of people facing famine-like conditions has increased by six times over the past year.

Hunger increased by 30 percent in Latin America since 2019: UN | Food News | Al Jazeera

 El Salvador is the smallest country in Central America and has one of the highest population densities in the region, with more than 300 inhabitants per square kilometer. 

Alongside Guatemala and Honduras, it also ranks among the poorest countries in the Americas. 

More than 40% of children in El Salvador live in poverty. 

Remittances from Salvadorans abroad account for more than $400 million (€345 million) or 22% of El Salvador’s GDP.

 Drought and forest fires are destroying areas used for food production, while hurricanes and floods cause widespread devastation. Degraded soil and increasing urban sprawl pose a threat to water and food supplies.  

El Salvador has used the US dollar as legal currency for two decades, but recently it became the first country in the world to make bitcoin a national currency.

 

YORKSHIRE

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