Upcoming events: Global Health Awareness and International Health Days, April – June 2023

Background

International public health days offer great potential to raise awareness and understanding about health issues and mobilize support for action, from the local community to the international stage. Every year, the global community comes together to commemorate these days through global events at National, sub-national, and internal platform. There are many world days observed throughout the year related to specific health issues or conditions ranging from mental health to zoonoses.

The World No Tobacco Day

The detrimental bearing of the tobacco industry on the environment is immense, adding unnecessary pressure to our world’s already scarce resources and fragile ecosystems. Tobacco kills over 8 million people every year and destroys the environment, further harming human health, through the cultivation, production, distribution, consumption, and post-consumer waste.

On 31 May 2023, the World Health Organization and public health champions around the world will come together to celebrate World No Tobacco Day. This year’s theme is “We need food, not tobacco”. The 2023 global campaign aims to raise awareness about alternative crop production and marketing opportunities for tobacco farmers and encourage them to grow sustainable, nutritious crops. It will also aim to expose the tobacco industry’s efforts to interfere with attempts to substitute tobacco growing with sustainable crops, thereby contributing to the global food crisis.

World Blood Donor Day

Blood is a necessary resource for planned treatments and the urgent interventions. It is helpful for patients who are suffering from life-threatening conditions for living longer and with a higher quality of life. It supports complex medical and surgical procedures

On 14th June every year, Nations around the world come together to celebrate the World Blood Donor Day, an event aimed at raising awareness of the need for safe blood and blood products and to honor the unpaid volunteers around the globe who donate the most precious gift of all – the gift of life.

For 2023, the World Blood Donor Day slogan will be “Give blood and keep the World beating”.
It’s a slogan that highlights the essential contribution that blood donors make to keep the world pulsating. That is by saving lives and improving other’s health.

World Immunization Week

Today immunization can protect against 25 infectious diseases and the World Health Organization estimates that immunization currently averts 2 to 3 million deaths every year.

In the last week of April, the world, as it does every year, will come together to celebrate and raise awareness of the value of vaccines and immunization and how they protect people of all ages, giving us an opportunity to peruse a well lived life.

For 2023, the theme is ‘Vaccines work for all’, it’s a theme that suits the fact that for more than two centuries, vaccines have helped keep people healthy—from the very first vaccine developed to protect against smallpox to the newest vaccines used to prevent severe cases of COVID-19. Since then, families and communities have entrusted vaccines to protect their loved ones.

World Malaria Day

Malaria remains a global burden affecting millions of lives every day. Over 3.3 billion people in 106 countries are at risk of malaria. In 2021, malaria caused an estimated 619,000 deaths, mostly among African children.

Malaria affected countries continue to respond to a host of challenges including disruption arising from COVID19 pandemic. These challenges have been further compounded by the effectiveness of the primary malaria fighting tool. Rising resistance to insecticide treated nets and ant-malaria regiments remain a major concern particularly in Africa

Each year, on April 5th, the world commemorates the World Malaria Day, an occasion used to highlight the need for continued investment and sustained political commitment for malaria prevention and control by exposing the burden of this disease to the world. The theme for 2023 is ‘Ready to Beat Malaria’. The overall aim of World Malaria Day is to spread awareness of the disease and to raise money for charities that are fighting to eradicate it.