Amid calls by the World Health Organization to reduce tobacco use and improve lung health on this year’s “World No Tobacco Day,” tobacco industry giant Philip Morris has pushed back, calling on its longtime adversaries in the public health community to group instead around a “World No Smoking Day.” Image Credits: WHO. Continue reading ->
In the wake of a World Health Assembly that became a focus of intense activist and social media attention over a WHO resolution on medicines price transparency, member states are now looking at new rules for shaping involvement of NGOs and other “non-state actors” at public WHO meetings. Image Credits: WHO. Continue reading ->
There has been a dramatic increase in security incidents around the epicentre of the Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), but a sharp decrease in hospital transmissions, increased vaccinations, and new measures to safeguard response teams, are positive signs, WHO officials told reporters today in a briefing. Image Credits: WHO/L.Mackenzie, Catherine […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Assembly today approved a milestone resolution to support greater public disclosure of prices for medicines and other health products – capping a nail-biting series of negotiations that continued until the very moment the measure came to the floor. Image Credits: Giulia Grillo, WHO. Continue reading ->
A closed-door group of negotiators reached agreement late Monday evening on a game-changing resolution to support greater public disclosure of prices in medicine markets, as well as costs of related R&D investments. Image Credits: Catherine Saez, WHO. Continue reading ->
The latest working draft World Health Assembly resolution calling for game-changing public disclosure of the prices paid for medicines, vaccines and other health products by countries and health systems shows a broad coalition of countries from Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia forming around the compromise draft. The draft, obtained Sunday by Health Policy Watch, […] Continue reading ->
Mounting political tensions between the United States and the embattled Venezuelan government of President Nicolás Maduro, including a proliferation of crippling US sanctions, are being played out in the halls of the 72nd World Health Assembly, marred by walkouts and finger-pointing by the two adversaries. Image Credits: WHO/PAHO, John Zarocostas. Continue reading ->
After a grueling 34 hours of nearly non-stop negotiations, World Health Assembly delegates appeared to be close to a final agreement Saturday evening on a resolution supporting more systematic disclosure of prices for medicines purchased and sold on national and global markets; a “drafting group” is expected to reconvene Monday morning to put the finishing […] Continue reading ->
While delegates remained bogged down today in negotiations to find consensus on a resolution to increase transparency of pharma prices, five United Nations agencies and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria forged a brand new collaboration to promote local production of medicines. The World Health Organization, the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization today launched its first-ever global strategy for the prevention and control of snakebite envenoming, just one year after the World Health Assembly agreed on a resolution to fight this neglected cause of death and disability. Image Credits: Catherine Saez. Continue reading ->