Only a quarter of countries worldwide have a national plan to support people with dementia and their families, according to the World Health Organization’s (WHO)  ‘Global status report on the public health response to dementia’ released on Thursday.  More than 55 million people globally are living with dementia and the number is estimated to increase […] Continue reading ->
Eleven African countries will this weekend start receiving their portion of the first batch of 400 million COVID-19 vaccines from Johnson and Johnson (J&J), the Africa CDC announced on Thursday. Recipients include Togo, Lesotho, Ghana, Tunisia, Angola, Cameroon, Egypt, Botswana, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Mauritius, and they are part of pool purchasing facilitated by the African […] Continue reading ->
  Sixteen countries have pledged more than 610 million COVID-19 vaccine doses for 2021-2022 through COVAX, the global vaccine sharing facility, and low and middle income countries have already received 37.7 million donated doses. The United States under President Joe Biden is leading the pack with a total pledge of 260 million doses, followed by […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) aims to reduce new hepatitis B and C infections by 90% and deaths by 65% by 2030 but to achieve this goal, the global health body needs countries to scale up hepatitis services including prevention, testing, and treatment. On World Hepatitis Day on Wednesday, WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, […] Continue reading ->
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR), fostered by the wanton use of antibiotic-laced feed and growth-boosting supplements for livestock and poultry, could lead to the “next pandemic”, warns the first-of-its-kind report on AMR that focuses on the long-ignored global animal health sector.  The new report, Feeding Resistance, on the growing threat of superbug risks associated with animal health […] Continue reading ->
People living with HIV in low-and middle-income countries will soon have access to generic second-line antiretroviral drugs at a much cheaper price following an innovative agreement between Unitaid and the Clinton Health Access Initiative Inc (CHAI). The new pricing agreement announced on Monday will see pharmaceutical company Hetero Labs manufacture a generic combination of darunavir […] Continue reading ->
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has accepted the resignation of Henrietta Fore as executive director of UNICEF  “with deep regret” and expressed his full understanding of her decision to resign. Through a statement released by his spokesman on Tuesday, Guterres thanked Fore her “inspiring leadership of UNICEF and for her service to improve the lives of […] Continue reading ->