NEWS IN BRIEF
UNITED STATES
US officially notifies WHO of its withdrawal The move is widely condemned as COVID-19 continues to rage around the planet. The US administration has formally notified the World Health Organization of its withdrawal from the UN body despite widespread criticism. When he flagged the move in late May, President Trump, accused WHO of helping the Chinese government in a cover up in the early stages of the coronavirus epidemic in Wuhan. The New York Times said this accusation was baseless. “There is no evidence that the WHO or the government in Beijing hid the extent of the epidemic in China, and public health experts generally view Mr Trump’s charges as a way to deflect attention from his administration’s own bungled attempts to respond to the virus’s spread in the United States,” it said. “In fact, the agency issued its first alarm on Jan 4, just five days after the local health department of Wuhan announced a cluster of 27 cases of an unusual pneumonia at a local seafood market. The WHO followed up with a detailed report the next day.” Public health experts in the United States reacted to the move to withdraw from WHO with dismay. “Turning our back on the WHO makes us and the world less safe,” said Dr Thomas Frieden, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Infectious Diseases Society of America “stands strongly against President Trump’s decision,” said its president, Dr Thomas M. File.
‘ Turning our back on the WHO makes us and the world less safe.’
34 | THE LAMP AUGUST / SEPTEMBER 2020
WORLD
Many more men are dying from COVID-19 than women In many countries, male fatalities are twice those of women. In Italy and China, deaths of men due to COVID-19 are more than double those of women. In New York City, men constitute about 61 per cent of patients who die. Australia is showing signs of similar results. Clearly, the major variable in severity of COVID-19 is age. But experts say the other major factor is the presence of chronic diseases, particularly heart disease, diabetes and cancer. These are all more common in men than women, which might account for some of the bias. Writing in The Conversation, Jenny Graves, Professor of Genetics at La Trobe University, says “the sex bias in COVID-19 deaths is part of a much larger picture – and a very much older picture – of sex differences in genes, chromosomes and hormones that lead to very different responses to all sorts of disease, including COVID-19”. “We’ve known for a long time that women have a stronger immune system than men. It gives women an advantage when it comes to susceptibility to viruses.” In China, the marked differences in death rates between men and women mirrors the extreme differences in smoking rate. Almost half of Chinese men smoke compared with only 2 per cent of women. Not only is smoking a severe risk factor for any respiratory disease, but it also causes lung cancer, a further risk factor.
‘We’ve known for a long time that women have a stronger immune system than men.’
