(DELHI, India via The New Humanitarian) – As medical professionals across the globe grappled with COVID-19 infections, microbiologist Dr. Bhavani Eshwaragari was confronting a quieter – though no less dangerous – pandemic. Reviewing patient samples in her laboratory in Continental Hospital in the southern India city of Hyderabad, she began to notice an alarming trend […] Continue reading ->
Animals, not humans are the largest consumers of antimicrobial drugs – and thus the leading factor driving antimicrobial resistance. But WHO and other UN actors are still dancing around the ‘cattle, chickens and pigs’ in the room. And member states aren’t keen to track animal antibiotic use trends – even at the cost of future […] Continue reading ->
Pharmaceutical giants have questioned why a waiver on intellectual property (IP) rights for COVID-19 vaccines is still on the table when they are battling to find markets for their vaccines amid order cancellations – including from the Africa Centre for Disease Control. “I’m stunned that the proposed IP waiver is still being debated while supplies […] Continue reading ->
Long months of pandemic lockdown have only exacerbated the harms due to alcohol experienced by billions of people worldwide. Now, WHO is in the process of developing a new alcohol action plan, in an effort to re-energize a stagnant process and overcome a “lost decade” of little progress on alcohol policies. Can it make a […] Continue reading ->
Proposals to incorporate some 40 new medications in WHO’s Essential Medicines List – from complex cancer treatments to new medicines for hepatitis C and rabies – will be examined over the coming two weeks by the EML Expert Committee. The Committee, which kicked off its deliberations on Monday with a public hearing, also will consider […] Continue reading ->
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, a “silent pandemic” of drug resistance to mutated bacteria, viruses and parasites is gaining ground and requires major government investments in antibiotic research and development (R&D), a group of experts has warned. “People are dying across the world from drug-resistant infections. This is a problem of today, and […] Continue reading ->
Almost one in three women experience physical and/or sexual violence across the course of their lifetimes. And over the past 12 months, more than one in ten women suffered from physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, according to a new WHO-led report on gender-based violence, published just a day after International Women’s Day. Gender-based violence […] Continue reading ->
As a deaf child in India, Sneha Das Gupta struggled to make friends and to learn during classes at school. Fortunately, in her earliest years, she was able to do well because she had access to a hearing aid, as well as speech therapy and support from her teachers at school. Today, she is a […] Continue reading ->
Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire have become the first countries in the world to start vaccinating their health workers against COVID-19 with a supply of doses from the WHO co-sponsored global COVAX facility. But it is “regrettable” that this milestone has come almost three months after vaccine campaigns already began in rich countries, World Health Organisation’s […] Continue reading ->
Vaccinating all of Africa’s health workers would need half a percent of all the doses that the G-7 countries have purchased, according to Global Citizen CEO Hugh Evans. On Tuesday, Global Citizen launched a five-point ‘Recover Better Together’ plan for the world, aimed at getting millions of citizens behind ending COVID-19 for all, ending the […] Continue reading ->