The World Health Organization (WHO) negotiations on the world’s first Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) system resumed in Geneva on Tuesday – with only two more weeks of formal negotiations left before the May deadline. Symbolically, this week’s talks resumed on the first anniversary of US President Donald Trump’s announcement that his country would […] Continue reading ->
A controversial clinical trial on the effects of the hepatitis B vaccine on babies in Guinea-Bissau has been “cancelled”, according to Dr Yap Boum of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, this has been contested by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is funding a Danish group to […] Continue reading ->
When and how the United States withdraws from the World Health Organization (WHO) is an “open question” for member states to discuss, according to Steven Solomon, the body’s legal officer. This is because the US has failed to pay its WHO membership dues of $260.6 million for the past two years (2024-2025) in violation of […] Continue reading ->
The Trump administration has withdrawn the United States from 66 multilateral organisations that it describes as “wasteful, ineffective, and harmful” – including the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which coordinates the world’s response to climate change and has the buy-in of every other country in the world. The UN Population Fund (UNFPA), UN […] Continue reading ->
UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, has said it is “deeply alarmed” by the worsening humanitarian situation in Burundi, which has reached a crisis point following a rapid influx of refugees and asylum-seekers fleeing a new wave of violence in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Since early December, over 84,000 […] Continue reading ->
The World Food Programme (WFP) is warning of a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian emergency in Sudan on Friday, with conditions in the besieged city of El Fasher in Sudan’s Darfour region described as “beyond horrific.” Speaking at a briefing to UN reporters in Geneva, Ross Smith, WFP’s Director of Emergency Preparedness, said “anywhere between 70 and […] Continue reading ->
Global leaders pledged US$ 1.9 billion to advance polio eradication on Monday, including a new $1.2 billion commitment by the Gates Foundation. The pledges, made on the margins of Abu Dhabi Finance Week, reduce the remaining budget gap for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s (GPEI) to just $440 million through 2029. That’s in comparison by […] Continue reading ->
Although global immunisation efforts have led to an 88% drop in measles deaths in the past 25 years, measles cases are surging worldwide, according to a new report from the World Health Organization (WHO). Last year, 59 countries reported large or disruptive measles outbreaks – almost triple that in 2021 and the highest since the […] Continue reading ->
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is transferring the majority of its Geneva jobs to Rome, in the latest wave of upheaval to hit the city and longtime global health hub, as UN agencies scramble to respond to international aid cuts and save money. A UNICEF spokeperson confirmed on Friday that some 290 jobs would […] Continue reading ->
A fire Thursday afternoon at the UN Climate Conference (COP30) venue in Belém, Brazil, led to delays in the crucial final stage of climate negotiations as discussions in the plenary paused for much of the penultimate day. The talks were at a contentious stage when the fire happened and remained so Friday’morning, when talks resumed […] Continue reading ->