WHO’s Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus appealed for a second time to the United States to “reconsider” it’s decision to withdraw from the UN global health agency. Speaking Tuesday at the close of a fractious meeting of WHO’s 34-member Executive Board, the WHO DG said, “we regret the announcement by the United States, of […] Continue reading ->
China’s assessed contribution to the World Health Organization (WHO) would increase by more than $50 million – from $87.586 million in 2025 to $137.828 million in 2026 if WHO member states approve another 20% step-wise contribution from all countries at the May World Health Assembly (WHA). That would be even larger than the US contribution […] Continue reading ->
CAPE TOWN – A coalition of South African civil society groups have urged South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa to “step up” and lead a coordinated national and regional response to prevent “mass healthcare disruptions, preventable deaths, and surges in new HIV infections and drug resistance,” in the wake of the US President Donald Trump’s cut off […] Continue reading ->
WHO Member States appeared to give strong backing to a proposed new WHO roadmap to reduce air pollution’s health impacts – with the ambitious global goal of cutting mortality attributable to human-produced sources by 50% by 2040. At the same time, a draft Climate Change and Health Action Plan, also aired at Saturday’s WHO Executive […] Continue reading ->
Russia has rejected a World Health Organization initiative to update its assessment of the health effects of nuclear weapons use, breaking with nations still grappling with the devastating legacy of Cold War-era explosions. The opposition comes as Russia has threatened to resume nuclear testing amid its war in Ukraine. In regions known as “sacrifice zones,” […] Continue reading ->
The disengagement of both USAID and the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) from the WHO-led global polio eradication initiative, threatens efforts in the world’s poorest countries with about $233 million more in a year in budget shortfalls, WHO’s Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean Region, Hanan Balkhy, said on Friday. This, in a year […] Continue reading ->
The US Centers for Disease Control has not updated its bi-weekly bird flu (H5N1) situation summary since 17 January – even if it finally published a limited edition of its Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Report (MMWR) on Thursday, 6 February. In the wake of the CDC information flow shutdown and the US withdrawal from WHO, Dr […] Continue reading ->
The WHO Executive Board voted to advance a resolution on aid to war-torn Gaza to May’s World Health Assembly, the first to be greenlighted while several dozen other initiatives remain on hold due to budget constraints. Meanwhile, WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus appealed to Israel to allow thousands of desperately sick and injured […] Continue reading ->
Parties embroiled in the conflict around Goma in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are discussing a humanitarian corridor to enable supplies and staff to address the mpox outbreak, according to Dr Yap Boum, Africa CDC’s deputy incident manager for Africa. Last week, the M-23 militia, reportedly supported by Rwanda, took over the […] Continue reading ->
Responding to health emergencies is at the heart of the work of the World Health Organization (WHO), which assisted almost 90 million people with humanitarian health support in the first nine months of 2024. But the loss of United States funding, which has included the immediate freezing of funds already committed, means that this essential […] Continue reading ->