Italy is pushing for the Vatican – a steadfast opponent of sexual and reproductive health rights – to have an enhanced role and greater privileges at the WHO member state meetings of the World Health Assembly and its governing Executive Board, according to a copy of a draft resolution, seen by openDemocracy. A handful of […] Continue reading ->
As the hotly contested proposal for an IP waiver on COVID-related health products comes up again for debate on Friday, 30 April at the World Trade Organization’s TRIPS Council, legal expert Hyo Yoon Kang looks at the foundations of IP law to challenge “TRIPS waiver” naysayers. Geneva Health Files [GHF]: You have argued that IP […] Continue reading ->
This past few weeks has seen a flurry of open letters from academics, politicians and NGOs dispatched to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, US President Joe Biden and other heads of state, urging their governments to support a proposal to the World Trade Organization to for a proposed “waiver” suspending intellectual property (IP) rights, and […] Continue reading ->
In a powerful ruling that could increase transparency and thus, industry compliance, India’s National Green Tribunal has directed state and central pollution control boards to chart and openly share with the public detailed data from online continuous emissions/effluents monitoring systems (OCEMS) operating in the country’s highly-polluting industrial sector. These powerful industrial interests – ranging from […] Continue reading ->
The debate around technology transfer is proving to be critical in addressing shortages in the production of vaccines. We wanted to know from developing country manufacturers on the challenges they face in making vaccines for COVID-19. Geneva Health Files brings you an interview with Abdul Muktadir, Chairman and Managing Director of the Dhaka-based company Incepta […] Continue reading ->
Tuberculosis care is quintessentially colonial, even in 2021. While many countries have been emancipated from their colonizers, the heritage of the colonial mindset, culture and even entire economies is deeply embedded within high burden TB countries in the post-colonial era. A disease of poverty, TB has historically been terribly neglected. Although the number one infectious […] Continue reading ->
One of the unquantified side effects (or health impacts) of the pandemic has been in a place few people cared to look very deeply – that is our mouths. For significant parts of the past year, dentists’ chairs in many offices around the world sat empty – as COVID-19 disrupted routine dental treatments. During the early […] Continue reading ->
One year after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic on 11 March 2020, a new report by the Foundation for Geneva has traced the success and the failures of the WHO and other international Geneva organisations in their response – as well as the implications for the future of multilateralism. […] Continue reading ->
The appointment of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former Nigerian Finance Minister, World Bank development economist and its former Vice President, and black African woman, as head of the WTO, has been heralded as ‘a big deal’, an inspiration, and ‘a sign of the many strides (Africa) has made in gender parity’. While all this is true, […] Continue reading ->
EXCLUSIVE – A series of recent leaks of emails and documents surrounding the EMA’s approval of the first COVID-19 vaccine by Pfizer/BioNTech highlight the intense political pressures regulatory agencies are under during the pandemic – as well as an oft-forgotten aspect of vaccine approvals – the quality control of vaccines during the leap from clinical […] Continue reading ->