The World Trade Organization (WTO) TRIPS Council agreed to recommend to the General Council, WTO’s highest-level decision-making body, that it extend Saturday’s deadline for deciding on whether to extend an intellectual property rights waiver for COVID-19 vaccines to diagnostics and therapeutics. The panel’s recommendation on Friday at a formal meeting chaired by Ambassador Lansana Gberie […] Continue reading ->
Africa’s limited pharmaceutical industry, high costs of raw materials, and dependence on imported medicines have long hampered citizens’ access to the medicines they need.  The challenges the continent faces are daunting. They include poor supply chain systems, lack of government investment in the pharmaceutical sector, unfavourable manufacturing conditions, limited health workforce, lack of sustainable health […] 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 ->
Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, has pushed back on media reports that its board has decided to end COVID vaccine support for 37 middle-income countries next year – and end altogether the dedicated COVAX vaccine facility, supplying free vaccines to some 92 low- and middle-income countries, in 2024. A high-ranking official at Gavi told Health Policy […] Continue reading ->
This year, “Equalise” was chosen as the slogan for World AIDS day, observed 1 December. The theme is a call to action around the need to address the injustices that are fuelling the AIDS epidemic as pre-existing inequalities are exacerbated by the serious disruptions to health systems caused by the Ukraine war, COVID-19 pandemic and […] Continue reading ->