Nearly 90% of infants globally received at least one dose of a diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (DTP) vaccine in 2025, while around one-third of girls globally received at least one dose of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which protects against cervical cancer. This is according to the annual World Health Organization (WHO)-UNICEF Estimates of National Immunization […] Continue reading ->
HPV vaccines have transformed cervical cancer prevention, but the next generation of vaccines must better reflect regional disease patterns, including the HPV35 genotype prevalent in Africa.   The recent WHO Global Status Report on Cancer paints a sobering picture. Among the many challenges, human papillomavirus, or HPV, is one of the world’s most serious infectious causes of […] Continue reading ->
The dramatic global health budget cutbacks in services for maternal and reproductive health and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) have produced 17 million unintended pregnancies, and more than 34,000 preventable maternal deaths in just the first year since cuts were made.  That recent assessment by French and Washington DC-based analyses, was cited by Guyana’s UN Ambassador […] Continue reading ->
A return on investment of 16:1 should be irresistible. So why does midwifery keep losing the budget fight, and what would make funders and finance ministers finally move? When a young mother in Mtendere, Lusaka, began bleeding heavily hours after delivering her baby, her life was in grave danger. Three midwives assessed her immediately, recognised […] Continue reading ->
Ghana’s parliament invited a vociferously anti-vaccine Kenyan and a conservative Dutch activist campaigning to curtail the World Health Organization (WHO) to address visiting MPs on “health sovereignty” last week. Ghanaian President John Mahama – who is championing African “health sovereignty” via an initiative called the Accra Reset – was a keynote speaker at the WHO’s […] Continue reading ->