Most H5N1 infections spreading through US dairy cattle and other animal populations are likely going undetected despite stepped up surveillance by the US Department of Agriculture, Michael Osterholm, director of the Centre for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP), told Health Policy Watch on Wednesday. Osterholm spoke as a growing number of infectious experts were […] Continue reading ->
African leaders want “explicit commitments” to debt relief and debt restructuring mechanisms, including debt swaps to support country-level pandemic prevention, preparedness and response (PPPR) in the pandemic agreement. This is one of the continent’s demands, made on the eve of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) pandemic agreement talks, following a high-level meeting of African health […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) pandemic agreement negotiations begin their final two-week stretch on Monday (28 April) amid a gamble with the process, a show of unity from African member states – and more suggestions for the draft text. This final intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) meeting will focus on finding “common ground and consensus”, according […] Continue reading ->
  The World Health Organization’s (WHO) working group has failed to meet its deadline of Friday (26 April) for amending the rules governing global disease outbreaks – the International Health Regulations (IHR) – and will reconvene. This emerged late afternoon on Friday (26 April) at a briefing after the week-long Working Group of Amendments to […] Continue reading ->
While no cases of human-to-human transmission have been recorded in the current H5N1 avian outbreak, scientists are concerned about its transmission speed in mammals and whether this might result in a mutated pathogen that can infect people more easily. “H5N1 is (an) influenza infection, predominantly started in poultry and ducks and has spread effectively over […] Continue reading ->
The US plans to double the number of countries it supports to prevent infectious disease outbreaks, opting for bilateral agreements with at least 100 countries, according to its new Global Health Security Strategy (GHSS). “Recent outbreaks, from mpox to Marburg, cholera, and other diseases… are wake-up calls for anyone who thought COVID was a once-in-a-lifetime […] Continue reading ->
A team of researchers from the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Oxford have identified diabetes, traffic-related air pollution exposures and alcohol use as the most harmful out of 15 modifiable risk factors for dementia. Their paper, published last month in Nature Communications, examines how genetic traits and modifiable risk factors affect […] Continue reading ->
Bed nets treated with an additional insecticide are between 20% and 50% more effective in preventing malaria than those treated with the standard single pyrethroid insecticide, according to pilots in 17 sub-Saharan Africa.  The New Nets Project successfully piloted nets impregnated with a new generation pyrrole insecticide in combination with pyrethroid in response to growing […] Continue reading ->