In a bid to better respond to both domestic and global needs, as well as future threats, the Biden Administration plans to spend billions of dollars to expand US vaccine manufacturing capacity enabling production of 1 billion vaccine doses a year by mid-2022, two top White House officials told US media on Wednesday.  The announcement […] Continue reading ->
Pakistan and eight other countries, mostly in or around conflict zones, face the largest gaps in vaccine commitments needed to reach a WHO goal of 70% coverage by September 2022.  The data is part of a new “COVID Global Tracker” – launched Wednesday during a first-ever meeting of the world’s foreign ministers, convened by US […] Continue reading ->
Most countries’ drug policies are misaligned with governments’ obligations to promote health, human rights and development, according to the first-ever Global Drug Policy Index, which was launched on Monday. Drug policies that rely on criminalisation, police intervention and forced eradication have a detrimental effect on the health and human rights of the affected community instead of […] Continue reading ->
Thirty-nine of the African Union’s 55 member states have now signed and/or ratified the African Medicines Agency Treaty, as of 6 July 2024, with Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cape Verde amongst the latest to swing behind the treaty. As the countdown for other nations to sign continues, Health Policy Watch is tracking […] Continue reading ->
More than 5 million people have officially died from COVID-19 less than two years into the global pandemic. COVID-19 is now the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and stroke.  There have been 5,003,021 COVID-19 related deaths as of 1 November, according to the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 Dashboard.  In the United States, 746,021 […] Continue reading ->
A “Zero Draft” report by a WHO Working Group gives cautious endorsement to advancing negotiations over a new “Pandemic Treaty” among WHO’s 194 member states.  That endorsement by the Working Group of member states remains couched in highly nuanced, diplomatic language that makes it clear how big the lift may be to actually negotiate a […] Continue reading ->
Ahead of a critical G20 meeting this weekend, WHO and its partners are asking the world’s leading industrialized nations  to come up with another US$ 23.4 billion over the course of the coming year to address stark shortages in COVID vaccines, tests and treatments remain dismally low in Africa and other parts of the developing […] Continue reading ->
Only five African countries are likely to reach a WHO global goal of vaccinating 40% of their populations by the end of the year, and the continent’s roll-outs may be slowed further by a global shortage of the syringes need to administer vaccines. UNICEF has reported an imminent shortfall of up to 2.2 billion syringes […] Continue reading ->
An ambitious  wish list of global economic and fiscal  measures that the world should adopt to combat the COVID-19 pandemic has been floated by the World Health Organization- just ahead of a critical G-20 meeting of the world’s most industrialized nations this weekend.  These include proposals for massive debt relief to debt-ridden countries and a […] Continue reading ->