COVID-19, conflicts and climate change are posing additional challenges to efforts to achieve universal health coverage (UHC) in the Eastern Mediterranean region (EMRO), the World Health Organization (WHO) acknowledged on the eve of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Day on Monday. “The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the vulnerability of our health, social protection and economic systems,”  Dr […] Continue reading ->
Leading public health experts are calling for urgent action to develop antibiotics for newborn babies, a population that is particularly vulnerable to antibiotic resistance.  Each year, there are an estimated three million cases of neonatal sepsis causing up to 570,000 deaths, many due to a current lack of effective antibiotics, according to a paper published […] Continue reading ->
Wily malaria-carrying mosquitoes are biting people earlier in the day before they get under their protective bednets and sleeping outside homes to avoid insecticide – and many have developed resistance to the insecticide used to impregnate the bednets. Despite these and other challenges, progress against malaria has been relatively steady – even during the height […] Continue reading ->
There should be much harsher penalties, including homicide charges, for those who intentionally falsify medicine and include harmful ingredients, according to Kawaldip Sehmi, CEO of the International Alliance of Patients’ Organisations (IAPO). Sehmi was speaking at an event hosted by Fight the Fakes Alliance in Geneva on Wednesday to highlight the global proliferation of fake […] Continue reading ->
The US Trade Representative’s (USTR) office announced on Tuesday that it supports extending the deadline on whether the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Ministerial Decision on the TRIPS Agreement should be extended to COVID-19 diagnostics and therapeutics. Trade ministers adopted the Ministerial Decision on the TRIPS Agreement in June, giving members scope to diversify the production […] Continue reading ->
Indonesia’s parliament passed a new criminal code that bans extramarital sex and criminalises abortion except for rape survivors on Tuesday, Reuters reports. The code applies to both citizens and visitors, and those who have sex outside marriage face up to a year in prison. Indonesia’s economy is heavily dependent on tourism and its tourism industry […] Continue reading ->
Keep the momentum to negotiate a pandemic instrument, urged Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) at the start of the third meeting of the intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) on Monday. “The conceptual zero-draft that your bureau has developed is a true reflection of the aspirations for a different paradigm for […] Continue reading ->