WHO and other UN and international relief agencies heartily welcomed Wednesday’s announcement of a long-awaited  Israeli-Hamas ceasefire. Israelis and Palestinians, meanwhile, began an anxious countdown, hoping that the agreement would indeed take effect as planned Sunday – even as Israel and Hamas traded accusations Thursday that the other was trying to torpedo the accord. “Wednesday’s […] Continue reading ->
WHO’s Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus issued a stiff rebuke to Israel for its military occupation of Kamal Adwan Hospital – the only hospital left operating in Gaza’s northernmost band of territory – which is now largely depopulated after months of bitter warfare.   In a post on X, Tedros also called for the release […] Continue reading ->
WHO’s Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was back in Geneva this week, after surviving a near miss from an Israeli Air Force strike on Sana’a International Airport, Thursday. Airport TV footage aired Monday by the DG on X showed his entourage fleeing the VIP departures hall, where they had been waiting to board a […] Continue reading ->
WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebryesus urged a ‘wait and see’ attitude Tuesday in his first public comments on US President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Robert F Kennedy Jr as Secretary of Health and Human Services – despite a flurry of fresh criticism by 77 Nobel Laureates over the controversial appointment. “It’s a transition […] Continue reading ->
Nearly two decades ago, South African researcher Kelly Chibale recalls participating in a pioneering World Health Organization (WHO) meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, organized by TDR, the WHO-hosted Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, focusing on the concept of an African drug discovery network.  For Chibale, the main outcome of that encounter was […] Continue reading ->
“Much stronger surveillance” of deadly H5N1 and other avian influenza strains in both domestic and wild animals is needed both in The United States as well as globally so as to head off pandemic risks from variants that could mutate to infect humans more directly.  A senior World Health Organization official, Dr Maria Van Kerkkove, […] Continue reading ->