Record heat in August this year has made it the joint warmest month alongside July 2023. It was also the first month since November 2025 when global temperatures were 1.65°C higher than the pre-industrial level baseline, shooting the Paris Agreement target of limiting global warming to 1.5°C yet again. In its latest update, Copernicus, the […] Continue reading ->
HIV services, mental health and harm reduction programmes have been severely affected by the huge funding cuts to organisations providing services for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) people over the past 18 months. Perversely, organisations in countries with the most repressive conditions for LGBTIQ people have been worst affected by cuts, according […] Continue reading ->
Saima Wazed, WHO’s Regional Director (RD) for South-East Asia (SEARO) and daughter of ousted Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, resigned Wednesday, just a day after South-East Asian member states recommended her termination, WHO confirmed to Health Policy Watch. “The previous day, 8 September 2026, the Regional Committee had recommended that Wazed’s appointment as Regional Director […] Continue reading ->
Fragmented enforcement and uncoordinated policies fail to stem the illegal tobacco trade in Europe, a new report by the EU Court of Auditors finds. The surge of unregulated novel nicotine products and a shift toward illegal manufacturing sites expose significant regulatory gaps. The auditors demand that Brussels take a more active role to establish a […] Continue reading ->
The defenders of sexual and reproductive health and rights are on the frontline of the “heightened hostility to science, fact, and truth, directly facing the anti-science toxic tangles of racism, sexism, and homophobia,” asserted Professor Kate Gilmore, co-chair of the Human Reproduction Programme’s (HRP) Gender and Rights Advisory Panel. HRP is the United Nations instrument […] Continue reading ->
“We have better tools now. We can, if we work together and work better, we can conquer AIDS.” For Dr. Magda Robalo, a public health physician and former Minister of Health of Guinea-Bissau, the science behind the HIV response has advanced dramatically, but the social and political environment surrounding the disease may be moving in […] Continue reading ->
Germany has declined to put forward a candidate for the election of the next WHO Director-General. With Spain also reportedly ruling out a bid, the global field of candidates has only four official nominees just a few weeks before the deadline. Germany will not nominate a candidate for the post of WHO Director-General, Health Policy […] Continue reading ->
Women’s organisations are anxious that Secretary-General António Guterres will push the controversial proposed merger of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and UN Women at the UN General Assembly later this month. Guterres proposed the merger as part of his UN80 initiative, aimed at streamlining and cutting costs as the global body tries to recover from […] Continue reading ->
A group of senior national security and health officials contend that cutting funding to the regional health organization will cripple the Western hemisphere’s ability to defend itself against disease threats. The oldest multilateral health organization in the world, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), is fighting many of the same health threats it did at […] Continue reading ->
More than 3,000 people have died in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Ebola Bundibugyo outbreak out of 6,250 confirmed cases, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said Thursday, as the virus kills nearly half of those it infects and outpaces efforts to contain it. “The numbers are telling the story,” Dr […] Continue reading ->