The World Health Organization issued an urgent call for countries worldwide to dramatically scale up COVID-19 testing, followed by stricter isolation of confirmed cases and contact tracing – saying that those steps are critical to getting the accelerating pandemic under control. But there was far less clarity from WHO about the use of travel restrictions. […] Continue reading ->
Europe has now become the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic, with more cases and deaths than the rest of the world combined, apart from China, said WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Even more worrisome, there are now more new cases being reported everyday in Europe, which has a population of about 741 million […] Continue reading ->
With escalating COVID-19 outbreaks in Europe, the Middle East, and the United States, some countries are heeding the World Health Organization’s advice and ramping up containment measures, while others, including Switzerland, home to WHO’s Geneva Headquarters, appeared more resigned to the uncontrolled spread of the disease in the wake of yesterday’s declaration of a COVID-19 […] Continue reading ->
As cases of COVID-19 surpassed 120,000 around the world, the World Health Organization on Wednesday declared a pandemic – a move the organization stressed was intended to “trigger” even more aggressive action from governments against the virus rather than surrender to its rapid spread. In line with current trends, numbers of COVID-19 cases, deaths and […] Continue reading ->
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, and Mastercard on Tuesday announced a US $125 million commitment of seed funding to a new COVID-19 Treatment Accelerator – whose aim as its name implies, will be to speed up the development of urgently needed drugs to treat people infected with COVID-19. Just hours later, the […] Continue reading ->
The World Trade Organization’s director general Roberto Azevêdo announced on Tuesday that he was suspending all WTO meetings at its Geneva offices, following the confirmation of a COVID-19 case among staff. It was the first publicly-announced case of the novel coronavirus infection at a Geneva-based United Nations or UN-affiliated organization since the epidemic began, which […] Continue reading ->
As the governments around the world struggle to control surging COVID-19 outbreaks, health experts highlighted cracks in global health systems that created conditions ripe for the pandemic. A report titled Power, Privilege & Priorities released Monday by Global Health 50/50 found that an inequality of health benefits and an inequality of opportunities inside organizations have […] Continue reading ->
As the World Health Organization and WHO member states celebrate 15 years since the signing of the the Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (FCTC), the global uptake in e-cigarettes, as well as targeted advertising aimed at children and adolescents, threatens the worldwide gains that have been achieved in reducing tobacco use. The convention is the […] Continue reading ->
WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus urged countries to redouble their efforts on COVID-19 containment, saying that China’s stunning success shows that goal still may be attainable – even as 16,470 new cases of the fatal virus mushroomed elsewhere across the globe in the past 24 hours. “This not a drill. This is not […] Continue reading ->