For months, Sharifa Shomale suffered in silence from tuberculosis, not knowing what was wrong with her. Doctors suspected a viral infection. Then an unlikely hero made a life-saving discovery: a mischievous rat named Hamisi. DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania—Every evening, as the call to prayer from the mosque echoes in the twilight from Manzese—a tangled Dar […] Continue reading ->
In the wake of the COVID pandemic, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Israel’s largest medical center, Sheba Medical Center, are launching a scientific collaboration aimed at identifying emerging disease threats in the region. One of the first projects planned will be a study examining the impacts on antibody defenses amongst travelers from […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) isn’t talking about it publicly, but behind the scenes WHO is planning a meeting for 12 January to evaluate next steps, Health Policy Watch has learned, as the absence of new cases in the Uganda outbreak makes it impossible to begin a clinical trial based on a ring vaccination of […] Continue reading ->
Along with a pledge to conserve 30% of the world’s biodiversity, the sweeping new deal reached in Montreal on Monday also etches a way forward to create an open-access platform for sharing gene sequences (digital sequence information) as part of new benefit-sharing arrangements. But some observers worry these policy advances still aren’t keeping up with […] Continue reading ->
The World Trade Organization (WTO) TRIPS Council agreed to recommend to the General Council, WTO’s highest-level decision-making body, that it extend Saturday’s deadline for deciding on whether to extend an intellectual property rights waiver for COVID-19 vaccines to diagnostics and therapeutics. The panel’s recommendation on Friday at a formal meeting chaired by Ambassador Lansana Gberie […] Continue reading ->
This month, world leaders gathered in Montreal for a major UN conference on biodiversity, aiming to reach an agreement on how to stop species loss. The Fifteenth Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) – COP15 for short– has drawn tens of thousands of people. Delayed several times, it is the first […] Continue reading ->
The Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) and African Centers for Disease control signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Thursday to providing technical support to African manufacturers of antimalarial drugs that would help bring their products up to WHO-approved standards – thus ensuring wider use of locally-produced drugs on the continent and beyond. The move […] Continue reading ->
There are emerging hopes that sometime in 2023, WHO can declare that the COVID-19 global health emergency is over, said WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking at a pre-holiday press briefing on Wednesday. Meanwhile, however, the world continues to invest some $2 trillion in wars and “killing each other” – but not nearly […] Continue reading ->
Africa’s limited pharmaceutical industry, high costs of raw materials, and dependence on imported medicines have long hampered citizens’ access to the medicines they need. The challenges the continent faces are daunting. They include poor supply chain systems, lack of government investment in the pharmaceutical sector, unfavourable manufacturing conditions, limited health workforce, lack of sustainable health […] Continue reading ->
Leading public health experts are calling for urgent action to develop antibiotics for newborn babies, a population that is particularly vulnerable to antibiotic resistance. Each year, there are an estimated three million cases of neonatal sepsis causing up to 570,000 deaths, many due to a current lack of effective antibiotics, according to a paper published […] Continue reading ->