After months of protesting about the lack of space for civil society in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) pandemic agreement negotiations, the Pandemic Action Network (PAN) is hosting two community meetings next week – and it expects member states to show up and listen. The meetings take place next Wednesday and Thursday (21 and 22 […] Continue reading ->
A wide array of stakeholders are looking toward the upcoming World Health Assembly this May to conclude negotiations on a new pandemic accord that seeks to make the world more prepared for the next pandemic. And most would agree that the primary task of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB), established by the World Health Assembly […] Continue reading ->
World leaders have a duty to deliver “an effective, legally-binding pandemic accord” by May to prevent the devastation wrought by COVID-19, according to a group of influential leaders and organisations. The call came in an open letter issued on Tuesday, the fourth anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a global emergency, and was signed by The […] Continue reading ->
Poland on Thursday suggested that it might be better to delay the approval of a new World Health Organization (WHO) pandemic accord, beyond the planned May 2024 deadline – so as to get to an “ambitious, clear and consistent” agreement. The Polish trial balloon seemed to break ranks with the drumbeat of recent statements by […] Continue reading ->
Misinformation, waning interest and entrenched positions threaten the World Health Organization’s (WHO) two pandemic-related negotiations aimed at strengthening future pandemic responses, according to a briefing given to the WHO executive board meeting on Monday. Draft agreements from the two processes – to establish a pandemic accord and to update the International Health Regulations (IHR) – […] Continue reading ->
A week long meeting of WHO’s Executive Board kicked off on Monday with plans for a fresh WHO multi-year strategy, a new “Investment Fund” to help finance it – and a warning by Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom that he was “gravely concerned” that WHO member states would fail to adopt a global pandemic accord […] Continue reading ->
As we approach the final months of member-state negotiations over a World Health Organization Pandemic Accord, due to come before the World Health Assembly in May, the efforts to forge a consensus have witnessed modest progress. However, the original divide between developed and developing countries on key issues such as finance, access and benefit sharing, […] Continue reading ->
COVID-19 vaccines reduced deaths due to the pandemic by at least 57%, saving more than 1.4 million lives in the WHO European Region between December 2020 and March 2023, according to a report published in medRxiv, a pre-print platform for health sciences, on Tuesday. Most of the lives saved were those of people aged 60 […] Continue reading ->
Days after government officials took a break from frenetic pandemic accord negotiations, news broke that European countries had destroyed at least 215 million unwanted COVID-19 vaccine doses valued at over €4 billion. The 19 countries surveyed dumped 0.7 doses per resident – with Estonia and Germany being the most wasteful, according to Politico, which broke […] Continue reading ->
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 ->