The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged governments worldwide to step up the supervision of vaccine manufacture and distribution, especially when public funding is used in vaccine R&D or manufacture, so as to prioritise essential vaccines and ensure they are distributed equitably. The global health agency’s call to governments came as it released its annual […] Continue reading ->
Europe’s attempts to get alternative gas supplies from African countries in the wake of Russia’s war in Ukraine are a “bridge to nowhere”, former US vice-president Al Gore told the UN climate change talks in Egypt, COP27. “We must see the so-called dash for gas for what it really is: a dash down a bridge […] Continue reading ->
¨Loss and damage´ from climate change gains a formal place on the COP27 agenda, as conference gets underway, while the World Health Organization issues urgent appeal to world leaders to negotiate a treaty to phase out fossil fuels altogether. Sharm el Sheikh – In a historic first, the issue of ¨loss and damage¨ finance for […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) has raised the alarm over drug-resistant fungi as it released its first-ever priority list of fungal pathogens at risk from antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Nineteen species of fungi have been identified by the global health agency as representing “the greatest threat to public health” due to their growing drug resistance. Meanwhile, […] Continue reading ->
BERLIN – Nearly 20 years ago, Ricardo Baptista Leite began his work as a young medical doctor in an infectious disease ward in Portugal – an experience that changed his life. “I met patients who couldn’t make it to the hospital because they couldn’t afford public transportation,” he said. “I diagnosed patients infected with multi […] Continue reading ->
A precedent-setting agreement to permit an expensive cancer drug to be produced more affordably by generic manufacturers has been signed between the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) and pharmaceutical company Novartis, enabling much wider access to a medicine that treats a rare blood cancer. Nilotinib is a twice-daily oral medication used to treat chronic myeloid leukaemia […] Continue reading ->
For “Nundy,” a mother of two living in South Africa’s Khayelitsha township, going to the doctor more than once a year is not an option. She would have to pay 50% of her total household income in a month in order to see a doctor, so she saves up all of her medical questions and […] Continue reading ->
BERLIN – If a new treaty that rewrites the global rules for pandemic response is really approved by the World Health Assembly by May 2024, as planned, that will still only be the beginning of the journey. The new international accord will still have to be ratified by a critical mass of WHO´s 194 member […] Continue reading ->
Amid criticism that the World Health Summit was ‘speed-dating for consultants’, panellists lamented a lack of practical plans to empower local service delivery A more empowered World Health Organization (WHO), stronger health local systems and better surveillance are some of the weapons that will protect the world against future pandemics, according to panellists at the […] Continue reading ->
New evidence that exposure to air pollution can potentially contribute to obesity in women has emerged from a study by the University of Michigan “Women in their late 40s and early 50s exposed long-term to air pollution—specifically, higher levels of fine particles, nitrogen dioxide and ozone—saw increases in their body size and composition measures,” said […] Continue reading ->