COPENHAGEN –  In Lebanon, international donors are supporting a network of public primary health care centers to test for diabetes and other noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), offering treatment equally to Lebanese nationals and Syrian refugees who are unlikely to return anytime soon to their war-torn homeland.  In Kenya, a new national insurance law aims to make […] Continue reading ->
COPENHAGEN –  While conflict and natural disasters are usually played out in the media against dramatic scenes of mass casualty response and rescue teams, there’s an iceberg of chronic health conditions that can be even more life threatening and these need far greater attention in emergency response.  That is the theme of a global high […] Continue reading ->
In January, Ugandan LGBTQ activist Steven Kabuye was stabbed multiple times by two men travelling on a motorbike and left for dead on the outskirts of Kampala, the country’s capital city. The 25-year-old, who had received several death threats after Uganda’s Parliament passed its Anti-Homosexuality Act last May, criminalising LGBTQ people, said that the attackers […] Continue reading ->
International humanitarian law is clear that “even if health care facilities are being used for military purposes, there are stringent conditions which apply to taking action against them, including a duty to warn and to wait after warning”, said Steven Solomon, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) principal legal officer. “Disproportionate attacks are strictly prohibited. All […] Continue reading ->
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), has announced the creation of a pooled African medicines procurement mechanism at the 37th African Union Summit, which ended yesterday.  The mechanism aims to spearhead “a new era of predictable demand for African manufacturers, empowering them to plan for the long-term and establish a robust […] Continue reading ->
One year after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake wracked Türkiye and Syria, some 690,000 people  remain displaced in southern Türkiye, out of the 3 million people that initially lost their homes  when the natural disaster hit in the early morning of 6 February 2023.    Another 40,000 Syrians remain internally displaced mainly in the northern region of […] Continue reading ->
      A milestone World Health Organization (WHO) decision to recognise noma (cancrum oris or gangrenous stomatitis) as a neglected tropical disease (NTD) is the result of a longstanding campaign waged for over a decade by global health researchers and advocates in Geneva and beyond. Proponents believe that inclusion can offer noma’s victims the […] Continue reading ->
An alliance of conservative World Health Organization (WHO) member states and right-wing US organisations has halted the process of granting a reproductive health organisation “official relations” with the global body. Meanwhile, a similar member state grouping objected to the use of “WHO LGBTQI+ community” in a routine human resources report that the Director-General tabled at […] Continue reading ->