The WHO said 88 countries have no minimum age at which e-cigarettes can be purchased and 74 countries have not implemented e-cigarette regulations.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called on countries to step up prevention measures, saying “children are being recruited and tricked into using e-cigarettes at a young age and may become addicted to nicotine.”
Teen users spike
Children aged 13 to 15 worldwide are more likely to use e-cigarettes than adults, WHO research shows, and in the UK the number of young users has tripled in the past three years.
The UN health agency said the products generate carcinogens, increase the risk of heart and lung disease and can affect brain development.
The WHO also warned that the tobacco industry is “funding and promoting false evidence” to claim that e-cigarettes reduce harm, while at the same time “heavily promoting these products to children and non-smokers and continuing to sell billions of cigarettes.”
Decline in vaccine coverage leads to increase in measles in Europe and Central Asia: UNICEF
Measles, a vaccine-preventable disease that weakens children’s immune systems and can be fatal, has risen as much as 3,200 percent this year compared to last in Europe and Central Asia, the U.N. Children’s Fund UNICEF said Thursday.
Some 30,600 cases have been confirmed in the region so far in 2023 and UNICEF warned that numbers are expected to rise further due to gaps in immunity as vaccination rates have fallen.
“There is no clearer sign of a collapse in vaccination rates than an increase in measles cases,” said Regina De Dominicis, UNICEF director for the region, calling for urgent public health measures to protect children from the dangerous disease.
The highest numbers of measles cases in Europe and Central Asia have been recorded in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Romania. An estimated 931,000 children in the region missed all or part of routine immunization between 2019 and 2021.
UNICEF highlighted that the vaccination rate with the first dose of the measles vaccine has fallen from 96 percent in 2019 to 93 percent in 2022.
The UN agency attributes the drop in reporting to declining demand for vaccines “fueled in part by misinformation and mistrust” during the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare disruption and weak primary healthcare systems.
Lebanese children are forced to look for work as the crises continue
The impact of Lebanon’s ongoing, overlapping crises is deepening, increasingly depriving children of their education and forcing many into child labor, UNICEF warned on Thursday.
The children’s agency said in a new study based on data from last month that parents are simply struggling to stay afloat as they make do with fewer and fewer resources.
The analysis shows a further deterioration in almost every aspect of children’s lives as the four-year crisis, resulting from the economic crisis, political unrest and the Beirut port explosion, shows no signs of abating.
The agency said the emotional burden is particularly heavy in conflict-affected southern Lebanon and among Palestinian children.
Eroding childhood
“This terrible crisis is eroding the childhoods of hundreds of thousands of children, through multiple crises not of their making,” said Edouard Beigbeder, UNICEF representative in Lebanon. “Its severity crushes children’s dreams and takes away their knowledge, their happiness and their future.”
More than a quarter of households say they have school-age children who are not attending classes, up from 18 percent in April this year.
Making matters worse, several dozen schools in southern Lebanon have been closed since October due to the intensification of hostilities across the Israeli border, affecting more than 6,000 students.
Skyrocketing prices and widespread poverty continue to force families to take desperate measures just to afford one meal a day and basic shelter.
Work, not school
The number of families sending children to work to supplement family income rose from 11 percent in April to a shocking 16 percent.
More than eight in ten households (84 percent) had to borrow money or buy on credit to buy essential groceries; that is an increase of 16 percent in six months, according to the research.
And more than eight in ten families have reduced health care spending, down from 75 percent.
The hardship and uncertainty are also taking a heavy toll on children’s mental health, with nearly four in 10 households saying their children are anxious, and 24 percent saying they are depressed on a daily basis.
