A compromise proposal on a World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) waiver on intellectual property for the production of COVID-19 vaccines is ‘problematic’, ‘largely insufficient’, and WTO members should not be politically pressured into adopting the text, several dozen civil society organisations said in an open letter published today. The letter, addressed to European Commissioners, European members […] Continue reading ->
Food price hikes, hunger and instability are predicted globally – but particularly in North Africa and the Middle East, which are already in the midst of serious droughts and heavily dependent on Russia and Ukraine for wheat. Bread is the staple food in Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt, and the price of wheat had already increased […] Continue reading ->
The COVID-19 pandemic has shed light on how human health and ‘planetary health’ are inextricably linked – through deforestation, urbanization and climate change, all of which increase future disease risks. This year’s Geneva Health Forum explores these and other critical global health challenges, as well as emerging solutions, just ahead of the World Health Assembly. […] Continue reading ->
Even while other parts of the world see upticks, or in the case of Asia, huge spikes in COVID-19 cases, an increasing number of African countries are scaling back COVID-19 surveillance and quarantine measures – a trend that the World Health Organization finds worrisome in the continent that still has the lowest rates of vaccination […] Continue reading ->
There have been 52 attacks on Ukrainian health facilities in the past 25 days, more than two every day, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Meanwhile, the health of fleeing refugees, their impact on the health services of neighbouring countries, and the fate of Ukraine’s tuberculosis patients are foremost on healthcare providers’ minds. “In […] Continue reading ->
UN Environment has joined a three-way alliance with the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Animal Health Organization (OIE), and WHO to advance “One-Health” solutions to both ecosystem degradation and pandemic threats, leaders of the four agencies said on Friday. The statement followed a meeting this week of the Tripartite FAO, WHO and OIE partnership […] Continue reading ->
From patients lying in the parking lots of hospitals, in the back seats of cars suffocating as their family members searched frantically for oxygen in India during its second wave of COVID last year, to the inability to receive emergency care amidst constant bombing and shelling in current war-torn Ukraine, global health experts and leaders […] Continue reading ->
A Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) announcement Thursday that it has signed agreements with 35 companies to manufacture generic versions of Pfizer’s life-saving COVID-19 Paxlovid treatment for distribution in 95 low- and middle-income countries came fire almost immediately from medicines access groups as too little, too late. The MPP-brokered sublicences follow on from an agreement between […] Continue reading ->
Attacks on health facilities appear to be part of a deliberate war strategy in Ukraine and other recent conflicts, according to the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) health emergencies programme. The WHO has verified 43 attacks on Ukrainian health facilities since Russia’s invasion on 24 February – and it expects further attacks as […] Continue reading ->
With fewer than 1% of its 90 million citizens vaccinated against COVID-19, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has resorted to training teams of “rumour-busters” to tackle misinformation about the virus in order to encourage more people to get the vaccine. David Olela, communications lead for the DRC health ministry’s vaccination programme, admits that his […] Continue reading ->