As the World Health Assembly opens on Monday in Geneva, it will have to grapple with shrinking global health budgets, new outbreak threats, including a new WHO declaration of a public health emergency in Africa over an Ebola virus strain that lacks any vaccine, and an increasingly fractured geopolitical space with deep disputes over Iran, […] Continue reading ->
Philanthropy can help make every dollar deliver more impact. I often think about a boy I met in Kajiado County, Kenya. He was the same age as my son, but half his weight. A World Health Organization (WHO) colleague measured the circumference of his arm to confirm what was already painfully clear: he was severely […] Continue reading ->
Ghana has become the latest African country to reject the United States’ terms for bilateral health assistance, particularly the requirement to share sensitive health data, according to Reuters. Late last year, Zimbabwe rejected US terms for health assistance, particularly the demand to share pathogen data without any “corresponding guarantee of access to any medical innovations […] Continue reading ->
The world’s darkest ongoing war – defined by sexual violence, extermination, famine and genocide – enters its fourth year today. With no end in sight, tens of millions of Sudanese people are facing a historic humanitarian crisis of “industrial proportions,” according to the United Nations (UN). Seven years after a new generation overthrew a three-decade […] Continue reading ->
Historic declines in Official Development Assistance (ODA) have set international aid back a decade, prompting civil society warnings that the ODA cuts will further devastate funding for global health, education and social protection. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released preliminary data showing total global aid fell by 23.1% in real terms during […] Continue reading ->
The Trump administration has put forward Luke J Lindberg, the US Department of Agriculture trade and foreign agricultural affairs under secretary, as its pick for executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). Lindberg would succeed Cindy McCain, who announced her resignation in October due to health issues. “Throughout his career, Under Secretary […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization said it was “investigating” the circumstances around the Israeli shooting of a WHO contractor driving a vehicle in the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis on Monday. Speaking at a UN press briefing in Geneva on Tuesday, a WHO spokesperson refused to confirm or deny Israeli military claims that the vehicle […] Continue reading ->
More than 60 countries now include refugees and migrants in their national health policies, according to a new World Health Organization (WHO) report tracking progress on commitments first set out by the World Health Assembly in 2019. The finding, drawn from a survey of 93 member states, is the first systematic count of how countries […] Continue reading ->
Millions of civilians in Sudan have lost their primary access to medical care following a lethal drone attack on the Al Daein Teaching Hospital in East Darfur on the evening of Eid al-Fitr. The death toll from the 20 March assault has risen to 70, with 146 people now documented as injured, according to the […] Continue reading ->
The year 2025 saw significant declines in the number of attacks on healthcare worldwide asa compared to 2024, but events still remain at record high levels in comparison to previous years, said a leading civil society group that tracks incidents last week in Geneva. This grim reality took centre stage at a seminar organized by […] Continue reading ->