The “Kick Big Soda Out!” campaign launched on July 8, 2024 ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics and ran through the end of the Paralympics. It’s all about holding sugary drinks companies – especially Coca-Cola – accountable for their impact on health and the environment. To discuss the campaign, Health Policy Watch spoke to Trish […] Continue reading ->
A method that first developed around polio elimination and matured during the COVID pandemic, is now being tested and used to track a much wider array of emerging disease threats. A unique symposium of scientists and public health experts at the Paris Sorbonne University last week looked at its promise and potential. In April 2020, […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) received $1.7 billion in new pledges of financial support at the G20 meeting this week, taking the total of voluntary pledges so far to $3.8 billion for the coming four years. With this, the WHO has met 53% of its investment requirement for its 2025–2028 strategy, in WHO parlance, the 14th […] Continue reading ->
Donald Trump has named Robert F Kennedy Jr as his choice for US health secretary, putting the controversial anti-vaccine activist and environmental lawyer in line to control some of the world’s most influential health agencies. Kennedy shot to political prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic when his organisation, Children’s Health Defense, became a leading global voice […] Continue reading ->
In a breakthrough for patients with multi-drug-resistant (MDR) tuberculosis (TB), researchers shared positive trial results for a shorter, tailored alternative at the World Conference on Lung Health in Bali, Indonesia. The insights came from the endTB-Q trial aimed at finding a simpler, less toxic, shorter regimen for fluoroquinolone-resistant MDR-TB. Fluoroquinolone is a common class of […] Continue reading ->
With plans underway for a new “Independent Panel” on Antimicrobial Resistance, endorsed at September’s UN High-Level AMR Meeting, the new body must become a strong scientific authority. It should have the power to “challenge” the agencies that create it and address both human and animal health factors driving drug-resistant pathogens. That was a key message […] Continue reading ->
Inadequate immunisation is driving the global surge in measles cases, with an estimated 10.3 million cases in 2023 – a jump of 20% since 2022. This is according to new estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). A total of 57 countries experienced large outbreaks […] Continue reading ->
African countries will soon use a PCR test for mpox developed by Moroccan company Moldiag that is cheaper than the Gene Xpert tests currently being used, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Infection (Africa CDC). “This test was approved after a number of tests were done in the [Democratic Republic of Congo] […] Continue reading ->
Dozens of tuberculosis (TB) activists took to the stage during the opening of the annual World Conference on Lung Health in Bali, Indonesia, to demand that the price of GeneXpert tests to detect TB is slashed to $5 in low- and middle-income countries. Medical test maker Cepheid and its parent corporation Danaher were asked […] Continue reading ->
This week, experts and policymakers are convening at the Union’s World Conference on Lung Health to discuss tuberculosis (TB), the world’s deadliest and most neglected infectious disease. Since the turn of the 20th century, over one billion people have died from TB – a death toll greater than that from malaria, smallpox, HIV/AIDS, cholera, plague […] Continue reading ->