News stories by Margaret Chan

ROME/GENEVA, Nov 13 (IPS) - The scourge of malnutrition affects the most vulnerable in society, and it hurts most in the earliest stages of life. Today, more than 800 million people are chronically hungry, about 11 percent of the global population.

The current economic crisis poses an enormous challenge to global health but also offers opportunities to lay the foundations for more equitable and effective health systems in the future, and to rationalise and improve the way that international organisations work for the health of people throughout the world, writes Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organisation.