For the first time ever, the World Health Assembly appears set to meet in a one-day virtual session on May 18, which would be devoted largely to debate the global COVID-19 pandemic, sources told Health Policy Watch on Tuesday. European Union member states are hopeful that a draft WHA resolution to create a voluntary patent […] Continue reading ->
“Epidemics, such as this one or any other, by their very nature, feed off existing inequalities and make them worse. And that’s what we see COVID-19 doing to inequalities between countries and within countries.” – Winnie Byanyima, executive director of UNAIDS. As the COVID-19 crisis unfolds and the global economy grinds to a halt, how […] Continue reading ->
When the World Health Organization sounded the alarm by declaring a ‘public health emergency of international concern‘ on 30 January, “the world should have listened,” said WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, in his strongest response to date, to repeated allegations by the United States that WHO failed to act quickly enough in the […] Continue reading ->
As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, it continues to reveal and reinforce deep inequalities within and between countries, where low income and marginalized populations pay the highest price and suffer the most. On Tuesday 28 April, a Panel discussion on ‘COVID-19 And Global Inequality’ will zoom into the issues even more deeply, with featured speakers including […] Continue reading ->
“I am not celebrating the fact that people can see the Himalayas or that the air quality is better in Madrid coming out of this virus, but what might come out of it is an awareness of how much human beings have contributed to the ongoing damage to people’s lungs, to our ability to drink […] Continue reading ->
In the largest global collaboration to address the COVID-19 crisis so far, the World Health Organization, European Commission, and other partners including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), launched a new campaign to accelerate development of COVID-19 diagnostics, drugs, and vaccines – and just as critically ensure that they are affordable and accessible worldwide. […] Continue reading ->
The combined impact of Covid-19 and malaria in regions where malaria is widespread “could be catastrophic,” warned David Reddy, CEO of Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), the Geneva-based product development partnership, just ahead of World Malaria Day, which is celebrated on Saturday, 25 April. His commment to Health Policy Watch, came in the wake of […] Continue reading ->
WHO’s Legal Mandate Is Weak In Responding To COVID-19 Emergency; But Changes Are Up To Member States
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, there could be “a window of opportunity… that would be suicidal to miss” to revise the International Health Regulations that govern countries’ behaviour during health emergencies, said Gian Luca Burci, former World Health Organization head legal counsel and now professor of international law, at a panel hosted by […] Continue reading ->
Essential health programmes such as polio eradication and trauma management, and programmes in the World Health Organizations’ Emergencies program, will be hit hardest by the suspension of US funding to the WHO. “The reality is for my programme, a lot of that US funding is aimed at direct life saving services to people in the […] Continue reading ->
Will the blue skies and rainbows seen in Delhi and other heavily polluted cities of the world be a fleeting image of the COVID-19 lockdown – or can it signal a change in trends around the world about how countries treat their environments? Save the shot – it may not recur soon. “This drop of […] Continue reading ->