Deadlock may once again be the name of the game at the World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights—TRIPS, for short. A communication from Switzerland and Mexico questioning the need to extend the waiver on intellectual property rights on COVID-19 vaccines to therapeutics and diagnostics is laying bare the divergences […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) member states are currently negotiating a pandemic treaty to prepare for the next pandemic – but how can representatives of civil society have a seat at the table? What are the rules of civil society participation inside and outside decision-making spaces and what should they be? These questions were discussed […] Continue reading ->
Europe’s attempts to get alternative gas supplies from African countries in the wake of Russia’s war in Ukraine are a “bridge to nowhere”, former US vice-president Al Gore told the UN climate change talks in Egypt, COP27. “We must see the so-called dash for gas for what it really is: a dash down a bridge […] Continue reading ->
As ceremonies opened in Sharm El-Sheik’s grand plenary hall on Monday, only one word came to mind in trying to sum up the scene: surreal. World leaders paraded into the hall to music seemingly taken from a Star Wars film. The cast of speakers taking the stage consisted of a petro-state monarch, a friendly host […] Continue reading ->
In 1918, when the notorious Spanish flu started to sweep through the world, there was very little physicians could do to help those infected. A century later, things have radically changed. This is partially due to a network of laboratories in dozens of countries that for the past 70 years have been collaborating to fight […] Continue reading ->
Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt – Over 120 heads of state are expected to attend this year´s UN Climate Conference (COP 27), which begins Sunday, raising hopes that global leaders will at least give a nod to the most existential crisis facing humanity by bothering to attend in person. But in a world paralyzed by the […] Continue reading ->
On Friday, the Ebola taskforce of Kassanda district in Uganda delivered the remains of four people that succumbed to the the virus for burial to their home village of Kitongo. Three of the bodies belong to family members who died from exposure to the virus after they exhumed a loved one they had lost to […] Continue reading ->
A report presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH) on Thursday found the potential for larger, deadlier outbreaks of monkeypox outbreaks in Central Africa and internationally – as the more dangerous Clade 1 of the virus become more transmissible. “Many people in the US CDC (Centers for […] Continue reading ->
The SARS-CoV2 virus just won’t give up. As the northern hemisphere heads into its third pandemic winter, experts say the continued evolution of Omicron’s sub-variants indicates a fresh wave is coming, but no one knows which variant will fuel it. Scientists have catalogued 390 Omicron lineages and 48 recombinants of the virus – which occur […] Continue reading ->
Six schoolchildren in the Ugandan capital of Kampala are the latest to be infected with Ebola, according to the country’s health minister on Wednesday – and with 15 cases in the densely populated city, some want the government to impose a lockdown. So far, there have been 109 confirmed cases, including 30 deaths, of the […] Continue reading ->