When governments invest in drug research and development (R&D) with pharmaceutical companies, they should ensure upfront that these drugs are affordable and widely available – and a global pandemic accord needs to provide high-level guidance on how to do this. This is the view of the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), a non-profit group […] Continue reading ->
A Chinese woman has become the world’s first person to die from the H3N8 strain of bird flu, the World Health Organization reported. No human-to-human transmission appears to have occurred, and the risk of the virus spreading is considered to be “low”, officials said. The 56-year-old woman from China’s southern Guangdong province is the third […] Continue reading ->
Ensuring that the HIV responses in countries receive full funding will not only lead to a 40% to 90% reduction in new infections but also result in substantial social and economic benefits, a new report launched by UNAIDS said. The socio-economic benefits countries with a fully financed HIV response will gain are higher educational outcomes, […] Continue reading ->
KIGOMA, Tanzania – Mary Akile is still harbouring emotional suffering four years after a rape attack that inflicted both physical pain and untold mental anguish. “I still remember how the attackers invaded my house and raped me, one after another,” says Akile, her voice cracking as she recalled the harrowing ordeal during April 2019 at […] Continue reading ->
Encouraging donors that make voluntary contributions to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) budget to enable these to be flexibly allocated rather than ringfenced for specific programmes might be more effective to “resolve the structural defect of WHO’s funding model than periodically calling for more assessed contributions from member states”. This is according to a new […] Continue reading ->
Hundreds of executives from US pharmaceutical and biotech companies have condemned as “judicial activism” last Friday’s ruling by a US District judge in Texas that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had erred by approving the abortion pill, mifepristone. The FDA, US Department of Justice and the drug manufacturer, Danco Laboratories have opposed the ruling, […] Continue reading ->
Seventy-five years ago on Friday – World Health Day – the World Health Organization’s (WHO) founding constitution became the first document to formally recognize health as a human right. Three-quarters of a century later, a WHO battered by the COVID-19 pandemic is juggling how to adapt to new health threats with achieving its most basic […] Continue reading ->
International NGOs and activists have called out the US for siding with China to exclude the public from seeing drafts of the pandemic accord as it is being negotiated by World Health Organization (WHO) member states. “The attempt to create a veil of secrecy now surrounding the substantive and technical text-based negotiations on the WHO […] Continue reading ->
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) recommends that countries on the continent move rapidly to automated disease reporting systems across the continent to cope with disease outbreaks, as Nigeria grapples with Lassa fever and Malawi and Mozambique struggle with cholera. “There has been an expected slowdown [in COVID-19 reporting] because of […] Continue reading ->
Climate change is driving the spread of mosquito-borne arboviruses – dengue, chikungunya and Zika – into new areas, thus leading the world to newer crises, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned this week. Several countries in the Americas region have reported an increase in dengue, zika and chikungunya cases and that the pattern might repeat […] Continue reading ->