A new study re­leased last Fri­day 26th March by the Unit­ed Na­tions, re­veals that more than 100 mil­lion more chil­dren than ex­pect­ed, are falling be­hind the min­i­mum pro­fi­cien­cy lev­el in read­ing, due to COVID-re­lat­ed school clo­sures.

For many of us, be­com­ing ill with any virus might put us on the couch for a day or two. It can be drain­ing, but af­ter re­cov­er­ing we can gen­er­al­ly get back to the things we’re used to. For some peo­ple, how­ev­er, con­tract­ing a vi­ral in­fec­tion can be life-al­ter­ing. It can cause months, years or even a life­time of de­bil­i­tat­ing symp­toms that dras­ti­cal­ly re­duce one’s qual­i­ty of life.

The coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic stopped the world in its tracks a year ago and con­tin­ues to de­bil­i­tate lives and liveli­hoods glob­al­ly. More than two mil­lion peo­ple have died from com­pli­ca­tions re­lat­ed to the virus and more than 127 mil­lion peo­ple have been af­flict­ed and bil­lions of lives dis­rupt­ed.

As it stands, 90 per cent of cit­i­zens in Trinidad and To­ba­go eat less than the rec­om­mend­ed dai­ly serv­ing of fruits and veg­eta­bles which aid healthy lifestyles.

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic brought new syn­dromes in­to fo­cus. To­day, on WORLD OP­TOM­E­TRY DAY, the world is shift­ing lens to fo­cus em­pha­sis on our eyes.

If you are one of the many peo­ple who toss and turn night­ly, then you are no stranger to how a sleep­less night can af­fect the mo­ti­va­tion, at­ti­tude and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of your day. How­ev­er, the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of poor sleep ex­tend far be­yond a cranky mood.

A se­cret trea­sure trove of sculp­tures, paint­ings and prints, craft­ed by the hands of renowned artist Son­ny­lal Ram­bis­soon has been un­veiled for the first time since his death al­most three decades ago.

When Pa­tri­cia Quam­mie first heard that her kid­neys were fail­ing and that she was in ur­gent need of dial­y­sis to stay alive she fell in­to a trance.

As re­cent­ly as the 1970s, women’s his­to­ry was vir­tu­al­ly an un­known top­ic in cur­ricu­lum or in the pub­lic con­scious­ness. To ad­dress this sit­u­a­tion, the Ed­u­ca­tion Task Force of the Com­mis­sion on the Sta­tus of Women ini­ti­at­ed a “Women’s His­to­ry Week” cel­e­bra­tion in 1978. The day March 8th, In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day, was cho­sen as the fo­cal point of the ob­ser­vance.

We have not been on air­planes for the past year, but this is an in­struc­tion we usu­al­ly hear from flight at­ten­dants: “Put your oxy­gen mask on first,” be­fore your part­ner next to you, even if it is your child.

When you're ill with a NCD (non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­ease) like di­a­betes or heart dis­ease, lin­ing up at a phar­ma­cy is not your idea of a fun out­ing, es­pe­cial­ly if you're over 60. Nei­ther is it the best use of your time if you are col­lect­ing con­fus­ing med­ica­tion on be­half of your af­flict­ed fam­i­ly mem­ber. In the time of COVID-19, it can be dead­ly. So­cial en­tre­pre­neurs Ki­ran Math­ur Mo­hammed and Ed­ward In­gle­field know this sce­nario all too well. And they de­cid­ed to do some­thing about it.

March is En­dometrio­sis Aware­ness Month, and this year, more than ever, we want to en­sure the voic­es of those af­fect­ed by en­dometrio­sis are not for­got­ten.