Countries Fail to Promote Physical Activity; Study Links Exercise and Vaccine Efficacy

25/10/2022 Kerry Cullinan

Most countries are failing dismally to promote physical exercise despite inactivity playing a major role in heart disease, obesity and diabetes, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO’s newly released Global status report on physical activity 2022 measures the extent to which governments are implementing recommendations to increase physical activity across all ages […] Continue reading ->

Parliamentarians Unite Forces Globally to Advance Pandemic Treaty

18/10/2022 Elaine Ruth Fletcher

BERLIN – If a new treaty that rewrites the global rules for pandemic response is really approved by the World Health Assembly by May 2024, as planned, that will still only be the beginning of the journey. The new international accord will still have to be ratified by a critical mass of WHO´s 194 member […] Continue reading ->

World’s Pandemic Response: Tall on Principles But Short on Plans

17/10/2022 Kerry Cullinan

Amid criticism that the World Health Summit was ‘speed-dating for consultants’, panellists lamented a lack of practical plans to empower local service delivery A more empowered World Health Organization (WHO), stronger health local systems and better surveillance are some of the weapons that will protect the world against future pandemics, according to panellists at the […] Continue reading ->

COVAX, the Global COVID-19 Vaccine Platform, was ‘Too Ambitious’

14/10/2022 Kerry Cullinan

Midway through last year, the head of the Africa Vaccine Acquisition Task Team, Strive Masiyiwa, angrily accused the global COVID-19 vaccine acquisition platform, COVAX, of misleading African countries about its ability to procure vaccines for them. Masiyiwa’s bitter remarks came after months of Africans watching Europeans and North Americans being vaccinated against COVID-19 while no […] Continue reading ->

mRNA Technology is ‘The Answer’ to Sustainable Local Vaccine Production

11/10/2022 Kerry Cullinan

If sustainability of vaccine production is the question, then mRNA technology is the answer, Martin Friede, co-ordinator for vaccine research at the World Health Organization (WHO), told a panel convened by the Global Health Centre at the Geneva Graduate Institute on Monday. “The big advantage of mRNA is that, in theory, you can make many […] Continue reading ->

Anticipation Mounting Over Expected WHO Senior Leadership Reshuffle

07/10/2022 Elaine Ruth Fletcher

World Health Organization Chief Scientist Dr Soumya Swaminathan, a respected voice in WHO’s senior leadership is expected to resign within the next month – in the first major leadership shuffle by Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Health Policy Watch has learned. Conversely, Dr Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO’s […] Continue reading ->

WHO’s African mRNA Hub to Begin Animal Trial on COVID Vaccine

05/10/2022 Megha Kaveri

The mRNA Vaccine Technology Transfer Hub in South Africa will start animal studies on its first COVID-19 vaccine candidate in October, a senior World Health Organization official said Wednesday. If all goes according to plan, human clinical trials will begin towards the end of 2023. “We did start this (mRNA vaccine hub) with a longer […] Continue reading ->

Advocates Mount New Initiative for WTO to Recognize ‘Public Goods’ in Trade Agreements – from Medicines to Forests

30/09/2022 John Heilprin

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 ->

From Equity to Conspiracies, People Say What They Want From a Pandemic Treaty

29/09/2022 Kerry Cullinan

From bedrooms in China to boardrooms in Geneva, people offered their views on how to protect the world against future pandemics during the second round of public hearings called by the World Health Organization (WHO). The public hearings are part of the WHO intergovernmental negotiating board (INB) process to develop a pandemic “convention, agreement or […] Continue reading ->

At UN, a Call to ‘Pandemic Proof’ the World Through Leadership

22/09/2022 Raisa Santos

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 ->