A major agreement has been signed between Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and two private sector partners to deploy a new form of biometric fingerprint technology to give children – who may not even have a birth certificate – a complete medical record in order to track critical childhood vaccines. Image Credits: Simprints, Simprints . Continue reading ->
1 in 25 people globally have at least one of the four major preventable and curable sexually transmitted infections (STIs) – chlamydia, gonorrhoea, trichomoniasis, and syphilis – but most people don’t know they are infected, leading to serious health consequences. Image Credits: Jonathan Torgovnik/WHO. Continue reading ->
The ground level of the Geneva International Conference Centre was buzzing with conversations about machine learning, algorithms and deep learning, at the third edition of the International Telecommunication Union’s AI for Good global summit last week (28-31 May). A buzzword for some, an already essential tool for others, artificial intelligence (AI) powered applications seem to […] Continue reading ->
In a little-publicised move, the WHA last week agreed to close a critical loophole in the WHO Pandemic Influenza Preparedness (PIP) Framework that could have allowed commercial vaccine manufacturers to indirectly make use of biological information about flu strains from another country – without providing that country with any benefits from the vaccines or antivirals […] Continue reading ->
A new series of briefing documents aimed at helping European Union (EU) policymakers tackle high medicines prices has been released by the non-profit think tank, Medicines Law and Policy. Image Credits: Medicines Law & Policy, Medicines Law & Policy . Continue reading ->
In the wake of a World Health Assembly that became a focus of intense activist and social media attention over a WHO resolution on medicines price transparency, member states are now looking at new rules for shaping involvement of NGOs and other “non-state actors” at public WHO meetings. Image Credits: WHO. Continue reading ->
There has been a dramatic increase in security incidents around the epicentre of the Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), but a sharp decrease in hospital transmissions, increased vaccinations, and new measures to safeguard response teams, are positive signs, WHO officials told reporters today in a briefing. Image Credits: WHO/L.Mackenzie, Catherine […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Assembly today approved a milestone resolution to support greater public disclosure of prices for medicines and other health products – capping a nail-biting series of negotiations that continued until the very moment the measure came to the floor. Image Credits: Giulia Grillo, WHO. Continue reading ->
A closed-door group of negotiators reached agreement late Monday evening on a game-changing resolution to support greater public disclosure of prices in medicine markets, as well as costs of related R&D investments. Image Credits: Catherine Saez, WHO. Continue reading ->
[Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, Press Release] Agencies warn of unprecedented situation in the DRC as cholera and measles epidemics compound Ebola challenges Geneva / Goma 27 May 2019 – More than 800,000 people will be immunised against cholera in North Kivu in the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) following the launch […] Continue reading ->