Leaders of a coalition of former Tuareg and Arab rebels in Mali signed a written pledge on civilian protections for health and medical facilities during armed conflict, reflecting global efforts to stem attacks on health facilities, transport, and patients that have became more frequent since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. The two leaders with […] Continue reading ->
Routine childhood immunisation across 57 low income countries declined slightly for the second consecutive year in 2021, following massive pandemic-related interruptions in vaccine coverage in 2020, according to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. Vaccine coverage stood at 77%, one percent less than in 2020. Preliminary data between January and May 2022, however, shows signs of improvement […] Continue reading ->
At a World Trade Organization Public Forum this week, public health advocates argued for the creation of a new WTO framework to stimulate voluntary offers by countries to supply more ‘public goods’ to trading partners and the world, including investments, assets and know-how critical to protecting the world against future pandemics and other health or […] Continue reading ->
NEW DELHI – When India’s Aam Admi Party (AAP) won elections in the northern state of Punjab in March, decisively wresting power away from the Indian National Congress (INC) and defeating the nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, clean air advocates and activists were optimistic that the burning of crop stubble by Punjab farmers – the biggest […] Continue reading ->
Infants’ brains are negatively affected by air pollution, according to a study which has documented the effects of children’s exposure to air pollution from conception to the age of eight-and-a-half years for the first time. Tracking 3,515 children aged 9-12, the study found an association between exposure to air pollutants in the womb and their […] Continue reading ->
Seventeen-year-old South African Amanda Nkosi* is already a mother and living with HIV – thanks to what she describes as “doing things that teenagers do” without access to accurate health information or contraception. She discovered her HIV status recently when a youth-friendly clinic opened near her home in the coastal city of Durban and offered […] Continue reading ->
NEW YORK – Global health leaders and experts urged nations to improve their preparedness and ability to respond to global pandemics in ways that go well beyond the health sector, even as political will to handle the COVID-19 pandemic and other health crises seems to be lagging. “Pandemic issues go far wider than health,” former […] Continue reading ->
The Global Fund raised $14.25 billion at its seventh replenishment conference in New York on Wednesday – still some way short of its $18 billion target for the next three years, although the United Kingdom and Italy had yet to make their commitments at the end of a day of public pledges. US President Joe […] Continue reading ->
Around two-thirds of Africans with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) die prematurely – before the age of 70. In Europe, less than a third of people living with NCDs die that early. This is just one of the stark statistics contained in the most extensive data-visualization tool yet produced by the World Health Organization (WHO) to assist […] Continue reading ->
Ugandan health officials have announced an Ebola outbreak following the confirmation of the relatively rare Sudan strain in the country’s Mubende district, while the government of Ghana has declared the end of the country’s first ever Marburg outbreak. According to the health authorities in Uganda, the Uganda Virus Research Institute confirmed Ebola in a 24-year-old […] Continue reading ->