GENEVA – Global health conversations are much deeper at present because everyone has been affected by COVID-19 – and this opens up the possibility of building an “all-of-society” approach before the next pandemic, said Sylvie Brand, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Director of Epidemic and Pandemic Preparedness and Prevention. “We have seen during this pandemic […] Continue reading ->
As the new moon marking the beginning of Eid festivities rose on Thursday evening, people in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum sheltered from bullets and explosions as prayers that a ceasefire to honour the end of the holy month of Ramandan would take effect went unanswered. At least 400 people have been killed in a […] Continue reading ->
When London Mayor Sadiq Khan introduced a ban on junk food advertising on the city’s buses and tubes, he faced a backlash from big food companies. Meanwhile, tobacco companies went all-out trying to stop Montevideo in Uruguay and Kampala in Uganda from banning smoking in public areas, including resorting to litigation. Tobacco company Phillip Morris […] Continue reading ->
After three years of its “Zero COVID” policy, the Chinese government allowed a return to relative normalcy for its citizens in early December 2022. Due to the ongoing transmission of Omicron and its numerous COVID subvariants in China, the sudden policy shift was accompanied by rapid community transmission across the country and high numbers of […] Continue reading ->
Twenty years ago, 16-year-old Mulikat Okanlawan embarked on a 1000-kilometer journey from her home in the Nigerian capital of Lagos to the Northwestern city of Sokoto in a bid to change her life. She is a survivor of noma, a little-known bacterial disease that attacks cells in facial tissue and bones. On paper, Okanlawan had […] Continue reading ->
World leaders, representatives of international development and humanitarian organizations, and UN delegations gathered in Geneva on Monday to rally financial support for Pakistan’s recovery from the devastating floods that hammered the country last year. Pakistan has appealed for $16.3 billion to assist it to rebuild the country, and almost half this amount had been pledged […] Continue reading ->
Along with a pledge to conserve 30% of the world’s biodiversity, the sweeping new deal reached in Montreal on Monday also etches a way forward to create an open-access platform for sharing gene sequences (digital sequence information) as part of new benefit-sharing arrangements. But some observers worry these policy advances still aren’t keeping up with […] Continue reading ->
The Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) and African Centers for Disease control signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Thursday to providing technical support to African manufacturers of antimalarial drugs that would help bring their products up to WHO-approved standards – thus ensuring wider use of locally-produced drugs on the continent and beyond. The move […] Continue reading ->
On the occasion of Universal Health Coverage Day, thought leaders on the front lines outline the challenges and opportunities of health systems in conflicts. The last decade of 12-year-old Zaynab’s life has been spent in an informal settlement in Lebanon, after her family fled from the Syrian conflict. She shares a three-room tent with her […] Continue reading ->
As the first snows fall across Ukraine, World Health Organization officials in Kyiv warn the coming winter will be “life-threatening for millions” of Ukrainians. At a press conference in Kyiv on Monday, WHO’s European Regional Director Dr Hans Kluge called the Russian airstrikes on Ukraine’s energy and medical infrastructure “the largest attack on health care […] Continue reading ->