The European Region and COVID-19 are in a “kind of ceasefire,” according to World Health Organization’s (WHO) Regional Director for Europe, Dr Hans Kluge. It is now up to the region’s 53 member states to take advantage of this window to prepare for the next fight, he said. “It is quiet and we have to […] Continue reading ->
The COVID-19 pandemic blindsided most of the world as it swept from China across the world at an unprecedent pace, infecting, ultimately killing millions of people. But more than two years later, there are some lessons that can be learned, said Tatiana Valovaya, director-general of the United Nations in Geneva on Tuesday evening. At the […] Continue reading ->
Children sick with malaria, adults in bed with fevers and rashes as a result of the Zika virus, tick-borne illnesses – all of these diseases are on the rise as a result of climate change, according to Valérie D’Acremont of the University of Lausanne. She spoke on Tuesday at the Geneva Health Forum during a […] Continue reading ->
More accessible funding will be required for the international community to implement a broad One Health approach, scientist Lisa Crump of the UN Environmental Program (UNEP) told Health Policy Watch on Tuesday. Speaking on the sidelines of the Geneva Health Forum’s (GHF) kick-off discussion, “One Health: is there a paradigm shift?” Crump said that “we […] Continue reading ->
When we think about the critical drivers of disease prevention and control – we need to stop thinking only about medicines, vaccines and diagnostics. In fact some of the most important forms of disease control can be found in forests – which harbor thousands of pathogens, known and unknown in relative isolation from humans and […] Continue reading ->
Geneva Health Forum’s Global Health Lab 3-5 May will showcase over 100 new diagnostics and treatment tools designed for resource-constrained settings. The Autothermo device for continuous, real-time temperature monitoring is one of the innovations being featured there. Early detection of patients’ temperature changes, especially in the case of newborns who lack adequate temperature control, can […] Continue reading ->
Qalansawe, Israel – The women, heads covered in hijabs, sat outside a small purple aluminium mobile health station parked in a residential neighbourhood here, shooing away any men who happened to pass by. Plastic chairs formed a small and intimate circle for the women waiting to be screened for cervical cancer – some for the […] Continue reading ->
Discussions about the creation of a new global convention on pandemic preparedness and response have already become a bit like a Christmas tree. Last week’s WHO-convened public hearings, saw a wide array of interest groups trying to attach a number of features to the proposed international pandemic instrument, ranging from stronger accountability and transparency measures […] Continue reading ->
Nathalie Strub-Wourgaft, a senior scientist at the Drugs for Neglected Disease Initiative (DNDi) has a vision that could be critical to halting the next pandemic – but is esoteric, difficult to organize and even more challenging to build the trust and buy-in needed to make it really work. The vision is of a common clinical-trial […] Continue reading ->
Just as members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol were released on Tuesday by Russian forces, the humanitarian organisation warned that its resources are going to be strained in the coming months as it deals with the crisis in that country. Dr Micaela Serafini, ICRC’s […] Continue reading ->