Right-wing African Members of Parliament (MPs), including some of the continent’s most vociferous anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ lawmakers, united with anti-vaxx conspiracy theorists for the first time at a conference in early May which plotted how to restrict human rights on the continent in the name of “family values”. Aside from the expected rhetoric against abortion and […] Continue reading ->
Members of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) face another sleep-deprived week as talks on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) pandemic agreement resumed on Monday and run until Friday. There are many outstanding articles and little prospect that the agreement will be completed in time for the World Health Assembly (WHA) next week, but participants hope […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) has updated its list of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that pose the greatest threat to human health, ranking the 15 families of bacteria that feature as “critical”, “high” and “medium” threats.  The Bacterial Priority Pathogens List (BPPL) 2024’s “critical” list features bacteria that are high burden, can resist treatment and spread resistance […] Continue reading ->
A $3-million “educational” deal between tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) and Medscape, a medical education provider for healthcare professionals, has been abandoned after the BMJ and The Examination exposed it last month. The deal involved a PMI grant to Medscape to fund continuing medical education (CME) accredited courses on smoking cessation for doctors and […] Continue reading ->
Despite the huge human and economic cost of  COVID-19, over two years of negotiations and substantial diplomatic pressure, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) failed to reach consensus on a pandemic agreement by Friday (10 May), the last scheduled day of negotiations before the upcoming  77th World Health Assembly (WHA). But the […] Continue reading ->
Despite much lost sleep for members of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) this week, it is impossible for consensus on a pandemic agreement to be reached by the end of Friday (10 May), the last day of this final round of negotiations. Various negotiators Health Policy Watch that they did not […] Continue reading ->
“The world is off track to reach most of the Triple Billion targets and the health-related Sustainable Development Goals,” said World Health Organization (WHO) Director General  Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.  His comments were part of the WHO Results Report 2023 released on Tuesday. The triple billion targets involve one billion more people benefitting from universal […] Continue reading ->
“Get this done” – and if you disagree, don’t block consensus, was the heartfelt plea made by World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyessus to member states negotiating a pandemic agreement on Friday (3 May). Tedros was addressing the ‘stocktake’ in the middle of the final 10-day meeting of the intergovernmental negotiating body […] Continue reading ->