An estimated 820 million people went hungry in 2018, the third continuous year in a worldwide trend of rising hunger. And over one-quarter of the world’s population, or 2 billion people in all, experienced moderate or severe food insecurity, according to the The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World report for 2019. […] Continue reading ->
Japan said on Friday that it disagrees with aspects of an already-adopted Human Rights Council (HRC) resolution on access to medicines, claiming that there is no evidence that “delinkage” between the cost of research & development (R&D) and the price of medicines improves access to medicines. Japan also disagreed with pursuing alternative frameworks for R&D […] Continue reading ->
[WHO/Europe Press Release] Brussels, Belgium, 15 July 2019 Two new studies from WHO/Europe show that a high proportion of baby foods are incorrectly marketed as suitable for infants under the age of 6 months, and that many of those foods contain inappropriately high levels of sugar. WHO’s long-standing recommendation states that children should be breastfed, […] Continue reading ->
New maximum residue limits for more than 30 different types of pesticides in animal feed and foodstuffs, updated standards for food additives, and a new standard for high value vegetable oils, and well as for hybrid varieties of palm oil, were approved today at the 42nd meeting of the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC42), the UN member […] Continue reading ->
If the fight against cancer has yielded substantial results on survival rates in high-income countries, low- and middle-income countries are lagging behind, while cancer is gaining ground, with a particularly worrying trend in children. A first-ever International Health Congress on Integrative Oncology, held 28-30 June in Geneva, presented traditional and alternative medicines as precious allies […] Continue reading ->
A new plan to improve collaboration across 12 United Nations and multilateral agencies to support UN member states to reach 2030 targets on health includes not only the ambitious aim of reducing bureaucracy and increasing efficiency, but of working better across sectors to address environmental, commercial and social factors that harm health. These factors, which […] Continue reading ->
Kawaldip Sehmi, CEO of the International Alliance of Patients’ Organizations (IAPO), answers 5 questions on why the Essential Medicines List is important for patients. IAPO is a United Kingdom-based alliance of 276 member organisations from 71 countries representing 50 disease areas, and working in collaboration with civil society, UN agencies and the healthcare industry. Sehmi holds a […] Continue reading ->
WHO has added ten new cancer drugs, including some pricey ones, to its 2019 Essential Medicines List, which provides global guidance to countries and health systems about drugs deemed most essential to patients and public health systems. The addition of major new cancer treatments in five categories, melanoma (skin), lung, blood and prostate cancers, reflects […] Continue reading ->
In a surprise appearance before the 2019 Congress of the International Council of Nurses, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that investing in a stronger nursing workforce is essential for achieving universal health coverage (UHC). He proposed that “every country bring one nurse and one midwife to the World Health Assembly next year,” as […] Continue reading ->
Heads of state from the world’s largest economies concluded this year’s G20 Summit in Japan with a general declaration committing to advance global health priorities – but the statement still left much to be desired in terms of concrete goals and targets. In the G20 Osaka Leaders’ Declaration, issued on Saturday at the close of […] Continue reading ->