The dramatic global health budget cutbacks in services for maternal and reproductive health and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) have produced 17 million unintended pregnancies, and more than 34,000 preventable maternal deaths in just the first year since cuts were made. That recent assessment by French and Washington DC-based analyses, was cited by Guyana’s UN Ambassador […] Continue reading ->
A trial to test two antiviral therapies on patients with Ebola Bundibugyo Virus started to enrol patients on Thursday – but its exact location in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Ituri province remains secret for security reasons. This emerged at a World Health Organization (WHO) briefing on Thursday, at which Director General Dr Tedros […] Continue reading ->
US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has broadened the terms of the country’s vaccine advisory committee in an apparent move to circumvent a judge’s ruling that his appointees lacked the requisite experience to serve as the country’s immunisation advisors. The new charter for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) was published on the […] Continue reading ->
Universal newborn screening needs to be dramatically expanded to improve infant mortality, says the World Health Organization (WHO). Without intervention, many of the estimated eight million infants born worldwide annually with congenital anomalies face severe impairment or death, warns a new technical report. The WHO report reflects a paradoxical landscape. As low- and middle-income countries […] Continue reading ->
For decades, malaria has been one of Africa’s most persistent health challenges. In Ghana, it was once the leading cause of death for children under five. Bed nets and antimalarial drugs reduced deaths substantially, but by the mid-2010s, the pace of improvement had declined. Climate change was altering the length and intensity of transmission seasons. […] Continue reading ->
The island country in the western Pacific Ocean has initiated a World Health Organization (WHO) review of nicotine in terms of the United Nations (UN) Convention on Psychotropic Substances In 2023, I stood in a room among other Palauan mothers, school principals, teachers, and students who had come to witness the signing of Palau’s comprehensive […] Continue reading ->
The European Parliament on Wednesday defeated a proposal to freeze cigarette excise taxes at a 60% rate of retail value – throwing a final decision on tobacco and nicotine policies into the court of the European Council of Ministers. But the politically divided EU Council is unlikely to raises taxes anywhere near the bar set […] Continue reading ->
Where a person is born should not determine whether they survive, whether they live with dignity, or whether they are forced to endure years of preventable suffering while waiting for surgical care that may never come. Yet, across large parts of Africa, this remains the reality. At this year’s 79th World Health Assembly (WHA79) in […] Continue reading ->
A return on investment of 16:1 should be irresistible. So why does midwifery keep losing the budget fight, and what would make funders and finance ministers finally move? When a young mother in Mtendere, Lusaka, began bleeding heavily hours after delivering her baby, her life was in grave danger. Three midwives assessed her immediately, recognised […] Continue reading ->
World leaders need to finalise the Pandemic Agreement by applying political will at the “highest level”, a spirit of equity and a sense of urgency. This is the call made by World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in an open letter published on Monday […] Continue reading ->