In the wake of COP28, WHO will press ahead with calls for fossil fuel phase out, stepped up commitments for health sector decarbonization, and a new resolution on Climate and Health, set to go before the World Health Assembly in May 2024. Those were key takeaways from an end-year WHO global press briefing by WHO […] Continue reading ->
The powerful Group of 20 (G20) countries will host a high-level meeting on One Health in October 2024 to better prepare members to address the health of people, animals and ecosystems. This was revealed by Alexandre Ghisleni, Brazil’s Global Health Ambassador, at a COP28 side event to launch an implementation guide for the One Health […] Continue reading ->
GENEVA – The election of the next president of the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) was almost derailed on Monday after the body’s board tried to postpone voting to investigate sexual harassment allegations against one of the candidates, Kenya’s Abbas Gullet. However, Kate Forbes of the American Red Cross […] Continue reading ->
In a fragile show of unity, the World Health Organization Executive Board approved a draft resolution calling for “immediate, sustained and unimpeded” humanitarian relief to beleaguered Gaza, including safe passage of health personnel and supplies, as well as ambulances and patients. The WHO EB move, which will clear the resolution for approval by the May World […] Continue reading ->
This is a bumper week for pandemic negotiations – the last formal set for the year – with meetings of both the World Health Organization’s (WHO) intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) and the Working Group on Amendments to the International Health Regulations (WGIHR). The INB, which is negotiating a pandemic agreement, meets until Wednesday, while the […] Continue reading ->
Israel launched what it described as a “targeted operation” into Gaza’s besieged Shifa Hospital early Wednesday morning – which was immediately denounced by the World Health Organization as “unacceptable” and contrary to international law – regardless of whether Hamas made use of the facility for military purposes. Meanwhile, on Tuesday, an Israeli delegation visiting Geneva […] Continue reading ->
Fierce gun battles between Israeli and Hamas forces raged in the vicinity of several strategically located hospitals in northern Gaza over the weekend and into Monday – leaving the fate of the remaining patients hanging in the balance. At Al Shifa hospital, hospital staff were reportedly trying to keep some 37 premature babies warm by […] Continue reading ->
A new Health Technology Access Pool (H-TAP), which aims to broaden the scope of IP and patent-sharing with low- and middle-income countries and a new African Union co-sponsored ‘manufacturing support platform’ were among the initiatives announced this week at the Second World Local Production forum in The Hague. The global forum, the second ever to […] Continue reading ->
Gaza’s struggling health facilities were again caught in the crosshairs of the Israeli-Hamas conflict over the weekend, as Israel acknowledged it had attacked an ambulance that it claimed was ferrying Hamas gunmen out of Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, and a dozen UN leaders called for an urgent cease fire. Israel pounded Gaza by air and […] Continue reading ->
At the start of the seventh round of negotiations on a pandemic agreement on Monday, a number of European countries asserted that any changes to intellectual property (IP) rights should be thrashed out at the World Trade Organization (WTO) – not the World Health Organization (WHO). IP rights are one of the most controversial aspects […] Continue reading ->