A Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) announcement Thursday that it has signed agreements with 35 companies to manufacture generic versions of Pfizer’s life-saving COVID-19 Paxlovid treatment for distribution in 95 low- and middle-income countries came fire almost immediately from medicines access groups as too little, too late.  The MPP-brokered sublicences follow on from an agreement between […] Continue reading ->
Two years after the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic on 11 March 2022, the developed world’s long-time fixation on the SARS-CoV2 virus, which has killed 6 million people, has suddenly shifted away from health to the war in Ukraine and sharply rising geopolitical tensions.  Meanwhile high-income countries have dropped […] Continue reading ->
From increasing disease surveillance and developing a pan-coronavirus vaccine to ‘eco-health’ and public trust, participants in the COVID-19 Global Research and Innovation Forum considered ways to globally prepare for future pandemics and end the current one. The third such forum, hosted by the World Health Organization, brought together over 100 research scientists, experts, policy makers, […] Continue reading ->
The past 10 days have seen a flurry of new US initiatives to meet the World Health Organizations target of vaccinating 70% of the global population – including a new Global Action Plan; involvement of PEPFAR networks to strengthen health system response; and most recently, a special US thrust in Nigeria, the continent’s most populous nation. […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization said it had released $3.5 million to support delivery of urgent medical supplies to the people of Ukraine, after Russia invaded the country on three fronts simultaneously early Thursday morning. Meanwhile, WHO’s European Regional Office called for an end to hostilities saying: “any further escalation could result in a humanitarian catastrophe […] Continue reading ->
The United States will support Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a second term as head of the World Health Organization – a move that is largely symbolic insofar as Tedros is running unopposed in the elections, scheduled for the 75th World Health Assembly, 22-28 May.  Although over a dozen countries in Europe and elsewhere lined […] Continue reading ->
In the wake of the chaotic, and often failed, global response to the COVID pandemic, the United States is not waiting for an elaborate international treaty or convention on future pandemics, which will take years to negotiate.  Instead, Washington wants to fast track a series of nitty-gritty, but far- reaching changes in the existing International […] Continue reading ->
ISLAMABAD – The timing couldn’t have been worse.  On the same day that Bill Gates, completed his maiden visit to Pakistan to cheer on the country’s progress towards polio eradication, WHO and Malawi health authorities announced that a small child thousands of kilometers away in Malawi had been ill with polio – infected by a […] Continue reading ->
European Union President Charles Michel congratulated African countries for their efforts to stimulate more vaccine manufacturing capacity on the continent, in a upbeat opening address at the European Union-African Union Summit, which began Thursday.   But in a more sobering note Wednesday, Stella Kyriakides, the European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety, called on global health […] Continue reading ->