This is the News in Brief from the United Nations.

UN’s nuclear watchdog urges ‘restraint’ in Ukraine

The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog on Wednesday urged “restraint” in Ukraine, amid serious concerns that the escalating conflict could compromise atomic facilities there .

“The safety and security of nuclear facilities, and nuclear and other radioactive material in Ukraine, must under no circumstances be endangered,” said Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Any such incident could have “severe” human and environmental consequences and also be a violation of the principles of the UN Charter, Mr. Grossi added.

Ukraine has a large and established nuclear programme which also includes the site of the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl plant, which is believed to now be under the control of Russian forces.

“The brave people who operate, regulate, inspect and assess the nuclear facilities in Ukraine”, must be allowed to continue to do their indispensable jobs safely, unimpeded and without undue pressure, the IAEA chief insisted. 

Healthcare needs already critical in Ukraine, warns UN health agency

On day seven of the Ukraine crisis, UN-led efforts to ramp up support to the country’s embattled health workers have continued, with the first shipment of lifesaving supplies, due to arrive in neighbouring Poland in the coming hours.

Initial concerns about a lack of medicines to treat chronic conditions such as diabetes have given way to an alert that “people will die” if they do not get oxygen and other supplies for emergency care, said Dr Mike Ryan, head of the World Health Organization’s Emergencies Programme:

“Some of us have been in this game a long time and we’ve developed very thick skins, but when you see nurses mechanically ventilating infants in basements of hospitals, even the toughest of us, we struggle to watch that.”

Head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that 36 tonnes of materials for trauma care and emergency surgery were on their way from a WHO hub in Dubai - enough to meet the needs of 1,000 patients.

Additional health supplies will also be available for another 150,000 people, the WHO Director-General added.

Prior to the conflict, the UN health agency had already distributed emergency supplies to 23 hospitals, but Tedros cautioned that these supplies in Kyiv were “currently inaccessible”.

Obesity alert for Africa for more than three in 10

To Africa, where the UN health agency warned on Wednesday that one in five adults and one in 10 children and teenagers will likely be obese by the end of next year, in 10 African countries, unless robust action is taken.

In some of the African nations under review, WHO showed that obesity levels reached 31 per cent in adults and more than 16 per cent among youngsters.

Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, described the situation as a “ticking time-bomb” which if unchecked, could cut millions of people’s lives short.

Being overweight is associated with severe disease and hospitalization from COVID-19, WHO said, but it added that many of the causes of obesity and being overweight were preventable and reversible.

Daniel Johnson, UN News.