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 trial to test two antiviral therapies on patients with Ebola Bundibugyo Virus started to enrol patients on Thursday – but its exact location in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Ituri province remains secret for security reasons. This emerged at a World Health Organization (WHO) briefing on Thursday, at which Director General Dr Tedros […] Continue reading ->
In 1994, Manvati Nag, an indigenous woman from Bijapur district in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, married and moved to Halbaras village in the forested Dantewada region about 80 kilometres away. Although the move was relatively short, it dramatically altered her health. Before moving, Nag never got sick. But after her move, she started […] Continue reading ->
On the day France recorded its hottest temperature on record, a coalition of health ministers, officials and advocates huddled in a sweaty, half-full auditorium in Paris to take stock of a campaign they have spent a decade waging: the fight to put human health at the centre of the world’s response to climate change. The […] Continue reading ->
US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has broadened the terms of the country’s vaccine advisory committee in an apparent move to circumvent a judge’s ruling that his appointees lacked the requisite experience to serve as the country’s immunisation advisors. The new charter for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) was published on the […] Continue reading ->
LONDON – “Cleaner air is possible when there’s political will,” said Cecilia Vaca Jones, executive director of Breathe Cities, told a panel during London Climate Action Week. Britain’s capital is the poster child for that statement. In 2019, less than a decade after more stringent national air quality targets were first introduced, some experts estimated […] Continue reading ->
This is a fact: a new pandemic threat is not a question of if, but when. Armed with this knowledge, all leaders must ask themselves: Are we ready, and what more must be done to protect our people and avoid an Ebola- or COVID-sized catastrophe? Over the last decade, outbreak and pandemic monitoring bodies and […] Continue reading ->
As the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria heads into a secretive but highly contentious election of a new Executive Director, the names of several candidates reported to be on the shortlist, all US citizens, have surfaced. They include former Global Fund Executive Director Mark Dybul, former Trump appointee William Steiger and […] Continue reading ->
Treatment tents are burning in Ituri, burial teams are facing hostility, and suspected patients are fleeing quarantine centres, disappearing into communities. These heartbreaking incidents are often described as obstacles to controlling the current Ebola outbreak. For the dedicated frontline workers risking their lives every day to contain the virus, these challenges are deeply frustrating. But […] Continue reading ->
Human rights and legal experts have urged African governments not to support a draft charter being incubated by conservatives that will undermine the rights of women and girls. African women, girls and sexual minorities already face huge challenges to their health and safety from conflict, repressive laws and harmful cultural and religious practices. Now, one […] Continue reading ->