Wellcome Trust, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the African Academy of Sciences have joined together in a new initiative to make clinical practice guidelines more efficient and adaptable for clinical trials that require less stringent approaches, such as those that take place during infectious disease outbreaks. Additionally, by applying a more flexible approach towards the application of these guidelines, the initiative also hopes to make them “future proof,” or able to better incorporate new technologies. Continue reading ->
An innovative five-year agreement between the Australian government and pharmaceutical companies, involving a lump sum payment of about US$ 766 million for an unlimited five-year supply of the most advanced Hepatitis C (HCV) drugs, has reduced the per-patient costs of these cutting-edge treatments by roughly 85%, according to a study today in the New England Journal of Medicine. Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) have partnered to develop the first-ever international standard for “safe listening” devices, including smartphones and audio players, to raise awareness and to prevent sound-induced hearing loss. Over 1 billion teenagers and young adults are at risk of hearing loss around the world due to unsafe levels of sound, according to the WHO. Continue reading ->
NEW DELHI, India -- Since its creation in 2002, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has been an extraordinarily successful financing instrument in global health. It says it has saved 27 million lives as of the end of 2017 and reduced the number of deaths caused by AIDS, TB and malaria each year by one-third since 2002 in the countries where it invests. Now the Global Fund director has some ideas to increase funding to carry on the fight. Continue reading ->
Switzerland, considered to be one of the richest countries in the world and home to significant medical research and development, has begun feeling the pressure of high drug prices for its citizens. This has led it to begin talking with other countries exploring joint procurement initiatives aimed at lowering prices, the Swiss global health ambassador told Health Policy Watch in a recent interview. Continue reading ->
Universal health coverage, access to medicines, and noncommunicable diseases are priorities for Switzerland in global health policy. Amb. Nora Kronig Romero is the head of the International Affairs Division and Vice Director General of the Federal Office of Public Health, as well as Swiss Ambassador for Global Health. She sat down with Health Policy Watch while in Geneva last week for the meeting of the World Health Organization Executive Board, which Switzerland attended as an observer to the governing board comprised of 34 WHO member states. Continue reading ->