More dedicated to scientific research and much more “colourful” than the World Health Summit were descriptions for the 14th Global Grand Challenges Meeting 2018 that ended last night in Berlin and brought together some top researchers, policymakers and civil society. Like the WHS, the Grand Challenges Meeting focused on antimicrobial resistances and pandemic pathogens. But it also talked a little more on the issue of how better to incentivize R&D to fulfil SDG3, the UN Sustainable Development Goal on health, according to participants. Continue reading ->
BERLIN -- Answering the call by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Ghana's President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Norway's Prime Minister Erna Solberg for a global action plan for pushing global health, heads of 11 major health organisations today signed “a commitment to find new ways of working together to accelerate progress towards achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals” at the close of the World Health Summit in Berlin. Continue reading ->
BERLIN -- Ten years after establishing the Berlin World Health Summit, the M8 alliance of medical institutes around the globe sees some noticeable progress in political commitment to the health agenda. “Gifts” presented at the opening ceremony yesterday in the German capital include the announcement of German Health Minister Jens Spahn to establish a Hub for Global Health and step up its financial contributions to the World Health Organization (WHO) to 115 million euros over the next four years. The three-day summit also will receive a global action plan to catch up with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 on health and well-being for all. Continue reading ->
Using flexibilities in the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) has long been an issue of the developing world. But policymakers gathered at a meeting on access to health in Brussels today said there was an urgent need for European Union countries, too, to make more use of flexibilities. Continue reading ->
AIDS activists, health activists and civil society organizations in Brazil and Argentina are pushing back against the negative effects of the planned free trade agreement between the Mercosur countries and the European Union. The EU-Mercosur negotiations might be the best chance as of now to advance an intellectual property agenda that is more favourable to access to health, says Pedro Villardi, coordinator on IP policy issues at the Associação Brasiliera Interdisciplinar de Aids Observatorio National de Politicas de Aids (ABIA). Continue reading ->
A few weeks after the failure of the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting in Buenos Aires to cut deals advancing issues from fisheries to e-commerce, some governments and trade experts around the world are concerned about the WTO’s future. Meanwhile, a couple of intellectual property-related provisions moved ahead after the ministerial without change. Continue reading ->
BERLIN -- With antimicrobial resistance (AMR) on the rise worldwide there is no time to lose for developing new antibiotic drugs, experts said during one of the last panels of this year’s World Health Summit in Berlin Tuesday. As in several other rounds during the three-day event, industry representatives underlined that there is an issue with the business model due to high risk and low return of investment for research in this area. Continue reading ->
Group of 20 health ministers today finished their first joint table top exercise to simulate the outbreak of a new deadly viral pandemic in “Anycountry” and passed a seven-page final resolution on pandemic preparedness and antimicrobial resistance. Non-governmental experts and health organizations welcomed the first ever meeting of health ministers in the G20 format, but see a risk of framing the debate from a global North security perspective. And despite a call of urgency with regard to antimicrobial resistance, the G20 could not agree to include the de-linking of the cost of investment in R&D from the price of medical products. Continue reading ->