COVID-19 was a “global stress test” for parliamentarians, whose job is to propose policies, said Kelvin Yil Lee Wuen, a parliamentarian from Malaysia. Speaking Monday at the UNITE Global Summit in Lisbon, the MP proposed five global policy recommendations, which he said his own country had adopted. 1 – Create conducive policies and infrastructure to […] Continue reading ->
The head of the Health Division at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development called on parliamentarians to redirect health funding towards prevention and primary care to help improve health outcomes. Speaking Monday at the opening session of the UNITE Global Summit in Lisbon, Francesca Colombo said that a basic health analysis proves the need […] Continue reading ->
Twenty years ago, Hazel Tau, a young South African living with HIV, and her peers had little chance of getting antiretroviral (ARV) treatment because it was completely unaffordable. The South African price for just one of the three ARV drugs she needed, AZT, was 665% higher than the best-priced generic available elsewhere in the world. […] Continue reading ->
South Korea became the first country in the world to achieve the highest level, “maturity level 4” (ML4), in regulating medicines and vaccines. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) in the Republic of Korea is the only national regulatory authority to be recognised by the World Health Organization (WHO) to have advanced oversight […] Continue reading ->
Stronger international rules and cooperation mechanisms on health are at the heart of the European Union’s new global health strategy, which was launched on Wednesday. The strategy is based on three priorities: ensuring that people stay well throughout their lives, strengthening health systems particularly by advancing universal health coverage, and applying a ‘One Health’ approach […] Continue reading ->
The world is not on track to end AIDS by 2030 due to patriarchy, stigma against vulnerable communities and inequality, according to UNAIDS in its 2022 World AIDS Report. The report, titled “Dangerous Inequalities”, points out that unequal power dynamics between men and women and norms that prevent girls and women from exercising their bodily […] Continue reading ->
Almost three years of harsh lockdowns, enforced quarantines in state facilities and daily testing have tried the patience of many Chinese people, who since Friday have taken to the streets from Shanghai and Nanjing in the east, to central Chengdu and Wuhan and Urumqi and Korla in the north and west. While scores of people […] Continue reading ->
Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has extended quarantine measures in the two districts at the epicentre of the country’s Ebola epidemic for another 21 days, citing the need to protect gains in the fight against the virus. This marks the third renewal of lockdowns in Kassanda and Mubende, and authorities are hopeful it will be the […] Continue reading ->
“There is this tsunami that is happening after the earthquake that was COVID-19 that is now coming to shore and hitting health systems across the world,” said Ricardo Baptista Leite, president and founder of UNITE, a global network of parliamentarians committed to addressing global health challenges. “The pandemic also led to a huge economic crisis […] Continue reading ->
Little agreement emerged from an informal World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting on Tuesday about whether an intellectual property (IP) waiver should be extended to COVID-19 therapeutics and diagnostics. But low and middle-income countries (LMIC) that qualify for free COVID-19 anti-virals Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir) and Molnupiravir have shown so little interest in accepting donations that some question […] Continue reading ->