drug control
Judy Chang, Executive Director of the International Network of People who Use Drugs (INUD) and other speakers at the Geneva Health Forum discussion on obstacles facing people using drugs during COVID-19 and the implications for health and human rights.

Policies initiated to control the COVID-19 pandemic increased the difficulties for people who use drugs when seeking health treatment, leading drug experts to conclude that treatment programmes need to be integrated into community care.

Ruth Dreifuss, former President of Switzerland and founding member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, noted that people who use drugs were discriminated against directly during the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and indirectly in the COVID-19 pandemic.

People who use drugs are considered a “key population” group to be targeted for treatment in the AIDS response and there is inherent discrimination in that phrase, she said. 

“The discrimination and the associated prohibition against key populations contributed to the AIDS pandemic,” she told the Geneva Health Forum’s session on Drugs and drug policies in times of Covid-19: obstacles and implications for health and human rights.

For COVID-19, however, she said the lockdown measures indirectly disenfranchised drug users.

“Lockdowns made them invisible and denied access to services. We believe the new pandemic made it difficult to keep the gains of the past 30 years,” she added.

Tensions heightened between public health and criminal injustice  

Judy Chang, executive director of the International Network of People who Use Drugs (INUD)

Judy Chang, Executive Director of the International Network of People who Use Drugs (INUD), added that policies such as the mass incarceration of people who use drugs highlighted tensions between public health and criminal injustice.

For instance, social distancing that is essential in reducing the spread of COVID-19 is in sharp contrast to mass incarceration. Harm reduction services were shut down during lockdowns, leaving no access to health and social services for drug users, said Chang.

Drugs also increased in price and were reduced both in quality and quantity. 

“Authorities had no idea of what to do with people who use drugs during a pandemic,” said Chang. 

With lockdowns and other forms of movement restrictions forming the initial core of the global COVID response, global health players are now increasingly leaning towards prioritizing strengthening community-led approaches.

Earlier, Health Policy Watch reported that The Global Fund now sees integrated health systems as key to preparing for future pandemics. 

Naomi Burke-Shyne, Executive Director, Harm Reduction International

This also holds true for harm reduction interventions targeting drug users. Naomi Burke-Shyne, Executive Director of Harm Reduction International, noted that identifying harm reduction as an essential social service is crucial for stakeholders developing drug policies to ensure they are applicable in pandemics.

“These conversations are so interesting because we can look at policy in terms of how harm reduction services can benefit from stepping up community leadership,” she added.

Pandemic gains in Switzerland and Prague

Daniele Zullino

But in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Switzerland’s drug policy reform crusaders achieved gains they’d been requesting for about 20 years, according to Professor Daniele Zullino, from the Division of Addictology at Geneva University Hospitals’ Department of Psychiatry.

“Regarding physical visitation, we were able to negotiate with the Federal Office of Public Health to reduce this from twice daily to once weekly. There is now a realisation that the over-incarceration of people who use drugs is fuelling this pandemic and other pandemics,” he said.

Pavel Bém, former mayor of Prague and a member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, said that the Czech government also came to understand that its initial COVID-19 law that directed citizens and residents to stay at home with their families could not be obeyed by homeless drug users who had no relatives.

“We’ve seen the flexibility of civil societies and movements, and the emergence of new services including provisional outdoor shelters for homeless people using substances,” he said.

Doctors are also now treating drug users via online consultations and they are now providing comorbidity services for clients. 

Pavel Bém, former mayor of Prague

There is also the introduction of street medicines that benefits homeless drug users in the country.

“I’m aware of the negative effects of this crisis but I’ve seen enormous progress,” he said.

Next steps

Antons Mozalevskis, Technical Officer for Key Populations at WHO’s Global HIV, Hepatitis and STI Programmes, said the global drug problem will need to be addressed “in a more unison way via collaborations with relevant organizations”.

Chang asked the global health body to step up and take a leading role that enthrones evidence in the enactment and update of drug policies.

She noted that drug use is complex and multifaceted, and the billions of dollars spent on the drug war are multiple times more than what is spent on harm reduction services. While governments send drug users to prisons, harm reduction services in prisons are still lagging behind.

She also called COVID-19 an “opportunity for community-led engagement.”

“Relying on health systems is not enough. Look at health within the bigger frame of dignity. COVID exposed the rigidity and lack of flexibility in health systems. We should not rollback progress made with COVID but see it as an opportunity to move forward,” she concluded.

Image Credits: Paul Adepoju/HPW.

Midwife vaccinates a man during a COVID-19 vaccine campaign in Madagascar.

A third shot of the Pfizer mRNA COVID-19 vaccine boosted vaccine effectiveness against infection, which had been diminished five to six months after the second vaccine dose, according to a study of over 12,000 healthcare workers released this week by Nature.

The study was conducted in Israel by Sheba Medical Center and involved 12,413 health workers (HCWs). It was released on the heels of an earlier report by a separate research team at Ben-Gurion University who reported in Science of the Total Environment that, based on wastewater sampling, they predict a resurgence of the Delta variant and reports in the US media that the Centers for Disease Controls and Prevention is anticipating a COVID-19 surge in the winter.

South Africa also appears to have entered a fifth COVID wave, reporting a sustained rise in infections in recent weeks. Only 31% of the South African population is fully vaccinated, according to Our World in Data – and nearly all of those only with two doses.

The report is the first to present real-world data on vaccine effectiveness, safety and immunogenicity within a large cohort of HCWs in a large tertiary center. However, conducting the study among HCWs means that it does not represent the general population.

Immunogenicity of third Pfizer vaccine

The Sheba team assessed immunogenicity, vaccine effectiveness and safety of the third Pfizer dose in a prospective cohort study of healthcare workers, which it has been tracking since the onset of the country’s vaccination campaign in December 2020.

The study found that anti-RBD immunoglobulin G (IgG) levels were increased 1.7-fold after a third dose compared with following the second dose; avidity increased from 61% to 96% – a 6.1-fold increase in neutralization tithers; and that there were 1.1 breakthrough cases per 10,000 days in the three-dose cohort versus 5.8 per 10,000 days in the two-dose cohort.

No serious adverse effects were reported in either case.

Specifically, in the first arm of the study, researchers assessed serological tests of samples from vaccinated HCWs at three different points and compared them: after they received the second dose, before receiving the third dose and after receiving the third dose.

Of 4,526 HCWs who were eligible for this part of the study, 1,047 serum samples from pre- and post-third dose time posts were evaluated. A 31-fold increase in IgG and neutralizing antibodies was observed after the third vaccine dose compared to after receiving the second dose and a 41-fold increase after the third vaccine dose compared to immediately before – five to six months after the second vaccine.

There was also a minor but significant increase in T cell activation, the study showed.

Secondly, the team compared antibody levels of breakthrough cases following the third vaccine dose compared to matched, non-infected controls.

“To investigate any added effect of the third vaccine dose on humoral response, we compared IgG and neutralizing antibodies at their peak levels following the second vaccine dose to that of the third dose,” they wrote in their paper.

“IgG and neutralizing antibody results were available for 3,477 and 664 HCWs, respectively, after the second vaccine dose and for 1,232 and 692 HCWs after their third vaccine dose. A linear mixed model was used to examine the differences in immunogenicity across age, sex and number of comorbidities, comparing post-second dose IgG levels and neutralizing antibody titers. The estimated geometric mean titer (GMT) for IgG following the second dose, in binding antibody units (BAUs), was 1,586 (95% CI, 1,458–1,709), and for IgG following the third dose, it was 2,745. Thus, a 1.7-fold increase in IgG levels occurred after the third dose in comparison to after the second dose.

“Neutralizing antibody levels after the second and third vaccine doses were 646 and 3,948, respectively. The neutralizing titer after the third dose was thus 6.1-fold greater than that of the second dose,” they concluded.

Finally, in a third arm, Sheba compared COVID-19 infections among HCWs with two vaccines given at least five months previous compared to those who received three doses. There was data available for 12,290 individuals who had not been previously infected and were eligible for a third shot. In total, 407 HCWs tested positive for COVID-19 via a PCR test: 368 in the two-dose cohort and 39 in the three-dose cohort.

“After adjustment for gender, age and time (weekly period), estimated vaccine effectiveness against PCR-confirmed infection regardless of symptoms of the third dose relative to two doses was 85.6%,” the team wrote.

The safety arm, in which adverse events among those vaccinated with the third dose were assessed via electronic questionnaire resulted in no difference from a second shot.

The study was conducted when the Delta variant was dominant in Israel, and the researchers highlighted that the results could change with other variants of concern. Nonetheless, they said, “our immunogenicity data can be of great importance once vaccine penetration and correlates of protection levels are determined.”

Image Credits: Samy Rakotoniaina/MSH, ABC7 News.

Pro-abortion protests have erupted in the US.

The global anti-abortion movement will get a boost if the US supreme court dismantles the 1973 landmark court case, Roe v Wade, that legalised abortion – but bans are ineffective in stopping abortions, succeeding only in making them unsafer.

“Any regression in protection of the right to abortion would not only stand to damage the global perception of the United States; it would also set a terrible example that other governments and anti-rights groups could seize upon around the world in a bid to deny the rights of women, girls and other people who can become pregnant,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary-General.

Callamard added that even predominantly Catholic countries like Argentina, Ireland, Mexico and Colombia had decriminalised and legalised abortion, but there “are grim signs that the US is out of step with the progress that the rest of the world is making in protecting sexual and reproductive rights”.

Colombia legalised abortion until 24 weeks of pregnancy in February, Mexico’s supreme court decriminalised abortion last year, while Argentina legalised abortion in 2020, and Ireland in 2019. There are signs that Chile and Brazil might also open access to abortion. 

However, Catholic Poland restricted access to abortion in 2020. And if Roe v Wade is overturned, US women and girls in states that do restrict abortion will be in a similar position as women in most countries in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and South-East Asia.

World Population Review

Nearly half of all pregnancies, totalling 121 million each year, are unintended, according to the State of World Population 2022 report, released last month by UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency.

Over 60% of unintended pregnancies end in abortion and an estimated 45% of all abortions are unsafe, accounting for five to 13% of all maternal deaths recorded, according to the report. 

A 2020 Lancet study found that unintended pregnancies in high-income countries were 34 pregnancies per 1000 women, 66 pregnancies per 1000 women in middle-income countries and 93 pregnancies per 1000 women in low-income countries.

Yet attempts to ease restrictions on abortion – even when a pregnancy threatens the health of a woman or girl or it was the result of rape – face fierce opposition in poorer countries, often with the support of the same US rightwing Christian evangelical and Catholic groups that have mobilised against Roe v Wade.

These anti-abortion organisations are also often against contraception, comprehensive sexuality education for children and LGBTQ rights.

Malawi in sub-Saharan Africa, is an example. It has a high maternal mortality rate, and an estimated 6-18% of these deaths are the result of unsafe abortions. But when Members of Parliament tried to introduce a Bill to expand access to abortion in 2020, US-based Catholics sponsored campaigns to stop this.

US global funding under threat?

 The US is a major global funder of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services – but the Helms Amendment has prohibited any US foreign aid for abortion since 1973. 

But US support for SRH tends to yoyo widely, depending on which party is in power.

In 1984, Republican US President Ronald Reagan introduced what has become known as the global gag rule, which outlawed US funding to any non-governmental organisations that provide abortions, information, counselling, referrals or advocacy.

While every US Democratic Administration has rescinded the gag law when coming into power, the huge policy swings have badly affected sexual and reproductive services in countries that are dependent on foreign aid as they are unable to maintain consistent services. 

The anti-abortion movement was massively boosted during the Trump Administration, with key posts going to officials that opposed abortion – and this momentum also propelled the Trump appointment of anti-abortion supreme court judges who are due to strike down Roe v Wade.

The Trump administration’s anti-abortion stance was a point of commonality with Russian arch-conservatives.

In October 2020, two weeks before the US election where it was ousted, the Trump Administration mobilised 34 of the world’s most conservative countries to support the Geneva Consensus Declaration.This declares that “there is no international right to abortion, nor any international obligation on the part of states to finance or facilitate abortion”.

Egypt, Uganda, Brazil, Hungary and Indonesia co-sponsored the declaration, which was also signed by Russia, Belarus, ​​Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, South Sudan and Sudan.

While Trump’s defeat has taken the wind out of the Declaration, it has provided a rallying platform for anti-abortion countries – supported by a host of conservative largely US-based Christian organisations.

The arch-conservative Catholic organisation, Ordo Iuris, based in Poland appears to have taken over co-ordinating the Declaration and activities seem to have dried up since Russia’s war in Ukraine.

However, the removal of abortion rights in one of the biggest democracies in the world is already galvanising right-wing groups opposed to abortion who are poised to enjoy their biggest victory in decades.

Image Credits: Gayatri Malhotra / Unsplash.

Dr John Nkengasong at one of the weekly Africa CDC media briefings that became a centrepiece of African Union response during the COVID pandemic.

African leaders have applauded the US move to appoint John Nkengasong as head of the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Reliefs (PEPFAR) – saying he’ll reinvigorate the programme that has been a flagship for the global battle against the AIDS pandemic for nearly decades. 

But they also said the loss of Nkgengasong as head of the African Union’s Centers for Disease Control (Africa CDC), would be a blow to the Organization that he built from a virtual unknown into a full-fledged AU health agency during his five-year tenure. 

“The reward for good work is more work. Our ‘loss’ is the ‘world’s’ gain,” said Ifedayo Adetifa, Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), reacting to Nkengasong’s Senate confirmation.

Prof Christian Happi, Director of the African Center of Excellence for the Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID) said the HIV/AIDS ecosystem is now “looking forward to a more impactful PEPFAR” under Nkengasong’s leadership.

Nkengasong will “bring immense skills to the important challenge of ending AIDS”, added Charlotte Watts, Chief Scientific Advisor, UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office.

But Aggrey Aluso Odhiambo, Health and Rights Program Manager at the Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa, also lamented the loss to Africa CDC – attributing its meteoric rise on the public health scene to Nkengasong’s transformative leadership. 

“I hope your successor will sustain the Africa CDC vision of an African new public health order,” he said.

Long road to finding an Africa CDC replacement 

Nkengasong before the US Senate during hearings on his PEPFAR nomination.

Nkengasong’s appointment reflects his “public health statesmanship and technical coordination of the African Union’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic as head of the Africa CDC, said  Moussa Faki Mahamat, Chairperson of the African Union Commission. 

The Africa CDC experience “will stand him in exceptionally good stead as he gears up to lead PEPFAR,a key programme in fighting the global HIV/AIDS pandemic,” Mahamat added. 

During the pandemic, Nkengasong became the public face of Africa’s response to a wave of crisis on the continent – beginning with woefully inadequate access to basic PPE for doctors and nurses to be followed by the dire shortage of vaccines on the continent – the most severe anywhere – in the initial months of vaccine rollout.  

Now, as the focus shifts to the longer-term tasks associated with rebuilding health systems and routine services, Nkengasong’s departure will leave a gap, his colleagues acknowledge, that will be difficult to fill.  The search for his replacement is expected to take several months. 

Confirmation last Thursday 

The US Senate last Thursday confirmed Nkengasong by voice vote to head PEPFAR with the title of “Ambassador at Large, Coordinator of United States Government Activities to Combat HIV/AIDS Globally”. 

“HIV/AIDS remains a serious threat globally,” he tweeted following the Senate confirmation, describing PEPFAR as a “hugely impactful” programme.

Nkengasong’s PEPFAR leadership journey officially began on 4 January 2022 when his nomination was officially received in the Senate and was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations.

On March 15, the committee held a hearing, the outcome of which was favourable; that paved the way for the Senate’s consideration and confirmation. 

With his exit from Africa CDC imminent, he told Health Policy Watch in March that the next priorities for Africa CDC should be leveraging gains made during the period of COVID-19 response to further strengthen systems across the African Union’s 55 member states, so as to also be better positioned to fight future pandemics. 

“The continent has been extremely innovative in developing platforms that are continuously being used to fight this COVID pandemic, but we need to focus our energy on developing them to fight other diseases,” he said.

PEPFAR’s long history of involvement in Africa 

PEPFAR has a long history of involvement in Africa, dating back to its inception in 2003 by the late president George W Bush, at the height of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Africa, as the pandemic epicenter at the time, also became the biggest beneficiary of PEPFAR investments, which globally amount to over $100 billion to date. The plan claims it has saved 21 million lives, prevented millions of HIV infections, and is now supporting countries end the HIV epidemic altogether – all while significantly strengthening global health security.

In Nkengasong’s opening testimony before the US Senate on Tuesday, March 15, 2022, the Cameroonian-born virologist who also holds US citizenship, said he will draw upon his three decades of experience with research and public health to advance PEPFAR’s mission.

“If confirmed, I would be stepping into this role at a critical moment when the world is confronted with dual global pandemics.  We have seen how COVID-19 has affected some progress in our HIV efforts with devastating results. But we have also witnessed how the health systems and institutions built and strengthened by PEPFAR’s investments have been central to the COVID-19 response,” he told senators.

PEPFAR under Nkengasong – integrated health systems approach

As Director of the Africa CDC, Nkengasong underlined that PEPFAR’s investments in health systems over the past 19 years helped strengthened—and in some cases, helped establish—the fundamental health infrastructure, including laboratories, surveillance systems, and human resources, in the countries it supports. 

While previous HIV prevention, treatment and control efforts were premised upon building ‘vertical’ systems as semi-independent entities, the goal has now shifted, Nkengasong also said. PEPFAR’s future efforts must now ensure that these HIV services and systems are well integrated into national health systems, sustainably financed, and resilient to respond not only to HIV/AIDS but also other diseases.  

“For this to happen, it is my belief that we need to capitalize on the capacity and experience of those in the countries where we work, coming to the table with a deep respect for their perspectives and needs, taking account of their insights, their knowledge of local contexts, and their reservoirs of expertise. 

For such systems to be sustainable and keep infectious disease in check, we must act collectively to support the capabilities of local leaders and regional institutions and work in respectful partnership and accountability with them,” he said.

See our previous Health Policy Watch story on Nkengasong and Africa CDC here: 

Nkengasong’s PEPFAR Prospects and Hopes for Africa CDC 

 

Image Credits: Paul Adepoju.

Dr Tedros visited Kyiv in Ukraine over the weekend.

Russia’s war on Ukraine and its impact on healthcare in the region is the focus of a special session of the World Health Organization (WHO) Europe on Tuesday, as the latest figures show over 200 verified attacks on health facilities.

Ukraine, backed by 38 other member countries including Germany and the UK, requested the session to discuss the attacks on health facilities, the disruption of healthcare including routine vaccinations, the impact of the war on healthcare in the region strained by refugees, and the danger of radiation and chemical events.

Also on the table at the session is a resolution to sanction Russia, a member of WHO Europe, for its attack on Ukraine. This is may result in the relocation of the WHO’s European Office for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases from Moscow, which has been requested by the Ukraine health ministry.

Over the past three days, WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and WHO head of health emergencies, Dr Mike Ryan, have been in Ukraine, where they handed over 20 all-terrain ambulances, generators and blood refrigerators to the country’s Deputy Health Minister, Iryna Mykychak. 

Addressing a media briefing on Sunday weekend, Ryan described “intentional attacks on healthcare facilities” as war crime, adding that he trusted that the United Nations and the International Criminal Court was investigating all transgressions.

 

Tedros also met with other senior government leaders to assess the current health needs in Ukraine and visited health facilities damaged during the war.

“WHO is committed to supporting people in Ukraine in accessing much-needed health services. The donation of 20 ambulances will bring lifesaving care as Ukraine’s health services have been significantly stretched and access to health care remains a challenge for many people,” said Dr Jarno Habicht, Head of the WHO Country Office in Ukraine. 

“One of the health workers we spoke to remembered how during the days of constant shelling in their city, ambulances continued to operate even during curfew to ensure people received the care they needed. We are inspired by the bravery of Ukrainian health workers and hope this donation will contribute to their work.”

“Due to the severe disruption to the Ukrainian health system, including routine immunization activities, there are serious concerns about possible infectious disease outbreaks, including measles outbreaks,” the WHO said in its latest situational report on the crisis.

G7 leaders also resolved over the weekend to impose further sanctions on Russia, including phasing out or banning the import of Russian oil. The US also announced further measures against Russian oligarchs and Russia’s gas company.

Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited to Ukraine on Sunday and met with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, while US First Lady Jill Biden visited mothers and children to express her solidarity on Mother’s Day.

The Ukrainian war unexpectedly disrupted Monday’s meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), due to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on various sectors. Numerous delegates walked out of the meeting after Russia claimed it was acting against genocide in Ukraine.

Earlier, Russia had started the meeting by condemning “Nazi activity”, prompting condemnation from Australia, Japan, the US, European and Baltic states –  and an appeal from China for all countries to respect each other’s sovereignty and avoid conflict.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Image Credits: WHO.

WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaking at a US press conference in Washington DC. on 7 April, after a series of recent meetings with the US Administration of Joe Biden.

A new WHO White Paper on strengthening Health Emergency Preparedness and Response supports the creation of a “Global Health Emergency Council” under WHO auspices and some “targeted amendments” to existing International Health Regulations governing emergencies.

However, the new White Paper, issued under the name of WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, also avoids taking a clear position on specific elements of reforms to the IHR rules – batting the issue back to member states.

Reform to the IHR rules, which the White Paper describes as “still too slow” to be effective in pandemics, appears to be shaping up as a key issue for debate at the upcoming World Health Assembly, which meets at the end of the month. 

The IHR reforms are seen as the most immediate answer to some of the failures of the COVID-19 pandemic – pending the negotiation and adoption of a new Pandemic treaty, convention or other legal instrument, which will take at least two years, followed by a ratification process. 

The United States is pushing for rapid adoption by the WHA of a proposal for a series of targeted IHR amendments, introducing more time-bound requirements for reporting outbreaks, and greater transparency. 

The US proposal for amended IHR rules would set tight, clear timelines for member states to report suspicious pathogen outbreaks to WHO, and for WHO to report those onwards to other member states and the public. However, it’s unlikely that China and Russia will readily agree to the US proposal – due to the threats they perceive to their sovereignty. 

United States already tabled pinpoint edits to the IHR 

(left) World Health Organization Headquarters in Geneva (right) White House in Washington, DC.

Since US President Joe Biden took office, WHO’s relationship with the US administration has vastly improved, as evidenced by Tedros’ recent trip to Washington D.C., followed by the recent breakthrough agreement to increase fixed, annual member state contributions to WHO – supported by the US.

However, the Director General still must continue to balance the relationship with Washington against the countervailing pressures of other member states.  So a proposal to streamline the IHR reform process, without endorsing specific reforms, may be the best way out for him.

Similar tensions also are evident, reading between-the-lines of the zero draft report by the WHO member state Working Group on Pandemic Preparedness and response – published just a day before the White Paper.  The Working Group report suggests that tough questions on IHR reforms could still be punted down to the autumn, at least. 

The member state draft suggests that an  IHR “Review Committee” might be set up by the WHA to consider a range of member state reform proposals – implying that beyond the United States, other nations are also in the process of drafting plans for IHR reform. The Working Group would then report back by October – with a hoped-for clear set of proposals for IHR overhaul. 

Both the WGPR and DG reports are labeled as “Zero Draft” and “Consultation Draft” respectively, indicating their wide-open nature.  Both contain a much longer laundry list of reform items, ranging from thorny questions around access and equity to more action on “One Health” and global health security, suggesting that it’ll be at least several weeks until it becomes clear what shape and direction talks take at the WHA.  

Director General text proposes “streamlined process on IHR amendments”  

The World Health Assembly meets 22-28 May in Geneva, Switzerland.

In terms of IHR reform, the Director General’s proposal for a streamlined process of creating amendments to the existing IHR says the following: 

“The inherent tension between the aim to protect health and the need to protect economies by avoiding travel and trade restrictions has been noted by the IHR Review Committee and the IPPPR [Independent Panel on Pandemic Preparedness and Review] as the most important factor limiting compliance with the IHR,” the Director General’s report notes, referring to two independent  reports on pandemic response, highly critical of WHO’s performance as well as of the IHR’s shortcomings, that were issued last year.

Adds the Director General’s White Paper:  

“In addition, too many countries still do not have sufficient public health capacities to protect their own populations, and to give timely warnings to WHO; the global alert system is still too slow; and the current self-reporting mechanism on the implementation of core capacities lacks incentives for compliance with the IHR. The absence of a Conference of the Parties for the IHR is an overarching limitation in their effective application and compliance.” 

“But to build further trust and strengthen global governance for health emergencies, amending certain articles of the IHR, while strengthening their implementation, is necessary. Such targeted amendments should make the instrument more agile and flexible and should facilitate compliance with its provisions,”

A related issue is the need to streamline the process to bring IHR amendments into force, which at present can take up to two years. Ensuring that the IHR can be efficiently and
effectively amended to accommodate evolving global health requirements is key to their continued relevance and effectiveness.

“A targeted amendment to achieve this streamlining has been proposed and is currently being discussed informally. The approval of this proposal at the 75th World Health Assembly will contribute substantially to ensuring that the IHR remains a foundational and relevant global health legal instrument.”

Working Group hedging bets 

Chinese delegate at the virtual World Health Assembly in May 2020: geopolitical tensions will likely make consensus on IHR a challenge at this year’s 2022 Assembly.

The Working Group text, meanwhile, suggests a flexible time-frame for reaching consensus on IHR reforms, stating that it: “Supports the Health Assembly continuing with an inclusive Member State-led process on amending the IHR (2005)… and proposes the following approach for adoption by the Seventy-fifth World Health Assembly”: 

“(a) Decision adopted by Seventy-fifth World Health Assembly that, in overview: – adopts any amendments to the IHR ready for adoption (if any); – agrees a Member State process to convene between the Seventy-fifth and Seventy-sixth World Health Assemblies to take forward work on all proposed IHR-targeted amendments; and – invites the Director-General to convene an IHR Review Committee to make technical recommendations on the proposed amendments referred to in subparagraph (b) below, with a view to informing the work of the Member State process. 

“(b) Proposed amendments to be submitted by 30 June, 2022. All such proposed amendments will be distributed by the Director-General to all States Parties without delay. (c) An IHR Review Committee to be established by the Director-General in accordance with Article 50(1)(a) of the IHR, with particular attention to be paid to the fulfilment of the letter and spirit of Article 51(2). 

“(d) The Member State process, to be convened no later than September 2022, should be aligned with the INB process, as both the IHR and the new instrument are expected to play central roles in pandemic PPR in the future. 

(e) The IHR Review Committee to submit its report to the Director-General by October 2022, with the Director-General transmitting it without delay to the Member State process. The Director-General will also communicate the report to the Executive Board at its 152nd session, in accordance with Article 52(3) of the IHR Independent Panel review.” 

Global Health Emergency Council under WHO leadership

Helen Clark, Co-Chair of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, which had proposed a Global Health Threats Council, under the UN General Assembly auspices.

The proposal for a Global Health Emergency Council under WHO auspices, complemented by a World Health Assembly Emergency Committee, is another key element of the Director-General’s White Paper Plan.

It’s clearly intended to head off the creation of a similar body under the UN General Assemnly Secretariat and/or G7 auspices, as had been proposed last year by The Independent Panel report and in some other fora.  

“Several panels have proposed the establishment of a high-level council on global health emergencies, comprising heads of state and other international leaders,” states the Director General’s White Paper.  

“WHO supports this concept and proposes the establishment of a Global Health Emergency Council, linked to and aligned with the constitution and governance of WHO, rather than creating a  parallel structure, which could lead to further fragmentation of the global architecture of HEPR.” 

Unlike IHR reform, the WHO White Paper clearly “puts the WHO foot down” against the creation of other additional structures outside of the Organization that have at times been proposed, one diplomatic observer told Health Policy Watch.

The WHO White Paper does, however, support the creation of a joint WHO and World Bank-managed Financial Intermediary Fund (FIF) as a standing mechanism for funding countries’ pandemic preparedness and response needs.

A number of countries, led by French and Germany, also have supported the idea of linking the funding mechanism to a new peer-review process by member states of countries’ pandemic planning, called a “Universal Health and Preparedness Review (UHPR).

The UHPR initiative is seen as a way of reinforcing the linkage between a country’s real preparedness status and its eligibility to compete for certain types of financial support.

“It’s very interesting as an idea, but not everyone wants to have this clear linkage between reforms and funds dispersed and this peer review process,” the observer said.

Overall, however, the White Paper, “is very broad, but it has the merit that it brings together the points made by the various reform panels, for a more structured discussion of what is doable or not,” the observer added.

“Clearly some proposals are more consensual that others, but at least it’s a good point of departure.”

Image Credits: WHO/P. Virot & LoC/Carol Highsmith, WHO, UNAIDS/Twitter.

Data sharing in the time of COVID-19: What works & what we need

Preparing for future pandemics requires us to reuse and share data quickly in order to repurpose that information for improved diagnostics and treatments, proposed data experts and scientists at a high-level discussion at the Geneva Health Forum Wednesday afternoon.

“It’s the value of what’s in data that can be reused, repurposed, to create new knowledge to provide insights into guidelines, and even lead towards better and improved treatments,” said Rob Terry, TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases.

The panel, ‘Data sharing in the time of COVID-19: What works and what we need’, focused on raising awareness of the lack of sharing of de-identified individual level data from COVID-19 clinical studies to sharing and identifying strategies for sharing data during the pandemic.  

All panelists noted that with sharing data globally, privacy and confidentiality still remains a concern, with many pointing to a need for data protection alongside data sharing.

“There’s a strong need to rationalize data protection laws and then contextualize them and make sure they’re not working against the public that they’re meant to be protecting,” said Naomi Waithira, Mahidol Oxford Research Unit Data Sharing Working Group, COVID-19 Clinical Research Coalition.

Three E’s of data sharing 

Rob Terry
TDR, the Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases

In an effort to maximize the benefits of reusing data, Terry brought up the three E’s of data sharing: efficient, ethical, and equitable.

“We must be equitable about sharing – when data is shared, it must not disadvantage those who are sharing the data,” Terry said.

He points to how researchers from low- and middle-income countries often find themselves exploited and exported for the benefit of others.

Data sharing also needs to be fair, so that it’s findable, accessible, and able to be used with other data sets. 

While there are hurdles to overcome with data sharing, shifting to a culture where data sharing is the norm is key, said Terry. 

“There are a lot of issues with data sharing, and they tend to be political, ethnical, technical, legal, and social. And we have solutions for many of those.”

“We need to create a culture where sharing is the norm. The benefits we’re gaining are so much better when the data is available and available for reuse rather than locked away in a drawer or in these days, a hard drive.”

‘Blanket’ privacy laws do more harm for data reuse 

Naomi Waithira
Mahidol Oxford Research Unit
Data Sharing Working Group, COVID-19 Clinical Research Coalition

However, while data privacy laws exist worldwide, to enable data sharing for scientific research, there needs to be more than just “blanket privacy regulation’, but rather regulation that addresses the actual risks of disclosure within its details,” Waithira proposed. 

In the past, there has been the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union, the Protection of Personal Information Act in South Africa, the Personal Information Protection Law in China, and others that aim to ensure responsible data collection. 

 With data anonymization and de-identification from these laws used as ways to address confidentiality, this reduces the scientific usefulness of the data that could be used for datasets in the future. 

“When anonymizing data, you remove parameters which could potentially identify the person, but the complexity of data reuse [needs this information] because we actually do not know what in the future these datasets could be used for.” 

“We need to understand the data protection rules. What exactly is meant by the GDPR, what does it cover, what doesn’t it cover?” added Nathalie Strub-Wourgaft, of COVID-19 Response & Pandemic Preparedness, Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi). 

Waithira brings up a need to engage with the public so they fully understand their needs and what is actually considered risks with data sharing. 

“We need to have more engagement with the public to understand their concerns and what they perceive as risks over data sharing and reuse, and then use that data to rationalize data protection laws,” she said.  

Harmonizing and pooling data during times of peace 

Nathalie Strub-Wourgaft
COVID-19 Response & Pandemic Preparedness, Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative

Others addressed how data must be pooled and harmonized across the board in order to quickly combat future pandemics and the spread of  infectious diseases. 

“We need to have information quickly to make sense of the data as quickly as we can,” said Strub-Wourgaft.

Pooling data together, stated Strub-Wourgaft, allows for secondary research to take place, which is especially important for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).

NTDs typically have little research, few guidelines and little data to work with. 

Using sleeping sickness as an example, DNDi’s consideration of data from diverse studies together allowed regulators to define a certain drug for treatment of sleeping sickness as a benchmark, she said. This also paved the way for other treatments to be developed and to further understand the severity of the illness.

“How do you make sense of clinical severity symptoms in relation to white blood count? You cannot do that without having more coherence by looking at all the data, putting them together and making a robust analysis,” she pointed out.  

Pooling data also provides researchers with more robust indicators about specific sub-population responses, as well as defining factors like: safety signals to consider in  treatment and baseline characteristics to predict severity progression of an illness, as has been the  case with COVID-19. 

Philippe Guérin
Infectious Diseases Data Observatory

Had this harmonization occurred before, we would have prevented many missed opportunities on the potential therapeutics of certain drugs, added Philippe Guerin of the Infectious Diseases Data Observatory.  

The infectious Diseases Data Observation (IDDO) is a platform managed by University of Oxford which is providing researchers with a quality-assured means of sharing data with other experts exploring the same disease or treatment – it’s the kind of platform that Guerin and other panelists say should be expanded now in preparation for the next pandemic – to enable more robust studies of treatments more rapidly. 

“We can’t organize things in times of crisis,”  Guerin said. “Things have to be organized and set up in times of peace. Without this organization in place, we will eventually fail again as we did for Ebola, as we did for COVID. We will fail again to have an environment where we can share and amalgamate data of value for a pandemic like COVID.” 

Existing data repositories such as IDDO were previously recommended as a way to support data sharing effectively, ethically, and equitably. (See related Health Policy Watch story)

Image Credits: Internet Archive Book Image/Flickr, GHF.

The South Sudan Minster of Health, Elizabeth Chuei, is receiving the COVID-19 vaccine at Juba Teaching Hospital.

Now that COVAX has enough stock of COVID-19 vaccines, its focus is on vaccination uptake – including encouraging countries to combine campaigns against measles and polio with COVID-19, and even helping with “campaign-style” vaccination drives.

This emerged at a media briefing on vaccine delivery called by the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator, of which COVAX is the central pillar, on Thursday.

Ted Chaiban, head of COVID Vaccine Country Readiness at the COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery Partnership, said that COVID-19 vaccination drives provided an opportunity to strengthen “pre-existing health challenges”, particularly cold chain delivery, health management information systems and training health workers. 

“Integrating COVID-19 vaccination into primary healthcare activities such as measles, polio, and the distribution of malaria bed nets has become important,” said Chaiban.

In January, 34 countries had vaccinated less than 10% of their populations, but this was down to 18 – and 15 of these were in conflict areas.

“In everything we do, what’s important is to put countries’ governments and partners at the centre,” added Chaiban.

“The next three to four months are key as countries use campaign-style strategies to accelerate COVID-19 vaccination while also addressing some of these other health priorities they are grappling with.”

Ted Chaiban, Global Lead Coordinator for COVID Vaccine Country Readiness and Delivery, COVID-19 Vaccine Delivery Partnership

COVAX’s vaccine delivery partners, Gavi and UNICEF, helped Burkina Faso with funds to run a rapid vaccination campaign as there was a risk that 100,000 of its Pfizer doses would expire.

“As we speak, there is a campaign on the way in DR Congo to use several hundreds of thousands of doses of vaccine that expire between May and July,” said Chaiban.

However, Gavi CEO Seth Berkley said that the waste of vaccines was well below 10%. 

The demand for vaccines from COVAX in the second and third quarters of the year is around 380 million doses. But last December alone, UNICEF delivered more than 350 million doses on COVAX’s behalf. 

“Both delivery shipments and demand are slowing down, specifically from quarter one to two,” said Eva Kadilli, director of UNICEF’s supply division.

“While there is ample supply of vaccines to satisfy country needs, massive work has also been done to support the overall infrastructure to enable the uptake of vaccines and really turn them to vaccination as we speak,” said Kadilli.

This includes the delivery of over 1.3 billion syringes – both to address COVID-19 surges and to ensure that routine immunisation doesn’t suffer. 

Rosemary Mburu

Rosemary Mburu, Executive Director of WACI Health and Co-Lead of the ACT-A’s civil society platform, said that vaccine hesitancy and a general distrust of science needed to be addressed.

“Even as supply picked up, we still have pockets of hesitancy and really low confidence in science itself,” said Mburu, adding that Omicron had lowered people’s risk perception.

“During the peak, there was a lot of diversion of human resources from different programmes to come in support COVID-19 response, and now with fewer cases, those health care professionals have returned to their usual line of duty, so you find that we don’t necessarily even have enough vaccinators, for example,” she added.

Berkeley stressed that COVAX did not ship any doses unless countries wanted them – and “we try to give countries their first choice of vaccine, and if that is not available, then obviously offering a second choice as well”. 

However, Gavi skirted questions about whether it would buy Johnson and Johnson (J&J) vaccines produced by South African generic company Aspen, following weeks of appeals from the Africa Centre for Disease Control. Aspen is likely to close its J&J production facility as it has yet to receive any orders for its vaccines despite 

Berkley simply said there was “more demand for mRNA vaccines”. However, he added that COVAX was “committed to making all vaccines available that are in the portfolio that meet WHO quality standards and recommendations”.

“The challenge we have is that some companies are going to try to particularly push their vaccines,” he added.

Previously, a Gavi spokesperson told Health Policy Watch  that “COVAX is committed to diversifying global supply, including through the development of regional manufacturing sites, especially in Africa.

“In the case of Aspen, the current overall demand situation means we are currently not in a position to buy large quantities of vaccines. However, we are in discussion to see if a collaboration would be feasible as part of expanding regional supply.”

Image Credits: UNICEF.

Geneva Health Forum panel tackles “the effects of pollution on health: Current risk and possible solutions” on May 5, 2022.
Geneva Health Forum panel tackles “the effects of pollution on health: Current risk and possible solutions” on May 5, 2022.

Pollution is responsible for the premature deaths of approximately 9 million people each year; more than the number of deaths attributable to war and terrorism, malaria, AIDS, tuberculosis, drugs, alcohol or even smoking.

Chemical pollution severely undercounted in premature deaths from pollution

That’s also the equivalent of one in six premature deaths worldwide, pointed out Rachael Kupka, of the Global Alliance on Health and Pollution (GAHP) at a panel on the effects of pollution on health on Thursday, the final day of the Geneva Health Forum.

That estimate, originally published in 2017 by the Lancet Commission on Pollution and Health, is likely even higher now, insofar as an updated Lancet report is expected to be published on May 18, she noted.

While the conference this year has focused heavily on a emerging knowledge about the complex relationship between climate change, biodiversity loss, and pandemic risks – the panel on the GHF’s closing day, drove home the point that pollution of the air, waterways and soils is a fundamental driver of all of these trends. And despite half a century of environmental action, health risks from pollution remain as acute as ever.

Types of pollution

Types of pollution

Lead poisoning – one in three children worldwide have elevated blood lead levels

Lead pollution in the Amazons

While there are many sources of pollution – from traditional ones such as biomass burning and water contamination to ‘modern’ sources like vehicles, one important risk that still needs more attention is lead pollution, Kupka and other panelists pointed out.

Despite the worldwide phase out in leaded gasoline, environmental lead remains pervasive, causing some 900,000 deaths a year, according to the 2017 Lancet report.

“We have not eradicated lead poisoning,” stressed Kupka , citing a recent report by UNICEF and Pure Earth that showed one in three children have elevated lead levels of at least 5 micrograms per decilitre of blood – the level at which the World Health Organization recommends intervention. That’s 800 million children and 90% of them live in low-and-middle-income countries, often least equipped to handle the health impacts.

“Lead poisoning causes irreversible neurological damage,” Kupka said.

It also caused up to a 2% drain on LMIC’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) from loss of productivity, and accounts for 7% of healthcare costs in middle incomes countries.

According to Kupka, primary sources of lead exposure today are not always the expected ones.

They include spices, cookware and lead acid car and truck batteries – as well as areas tainted by oil extraction and other industries.

She explained that in some countries, especially in South Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, lead salts are added to spices like turmeric and paprika to make them more colourful.

“Due to climate change, sometimes the turmeric roots become a dull yellow. People use turmeric for colouring – they want to make their rice and other foods colourful – so they are adulterating the spice,” Kupka said.

In countries ranging from Mexico, Turkey and Morocco some artisans still glaze their ceramic cookware with lead glazes.

And in most of the developing world, lead acid batteries are not properly disposed of, but rather dropped into landfills; lead and sulphuric acid seep into the soil contaminating the earth and underground fresh water supplies.

The effects of lead poisoning can be seen in the Peruvian Amazon, where oil extraction started mainly in indigenous areas in the 1960s, according to Cristina O’Callaghan.
The effects of lead poisoning can be seen in the Peruvian Amazon, where oil extraction started mainly in indigenous areas in the 1960s, according to Cristina O’Callaghan.

The effects are acute and chronic

Extractive industries, such as oil, are another source of lead poisoning, including for communities living around mining sites, where the gradual contamination of land and waterways may receive little notice or attention.

The Peruvian Amazon is one example, said another panelist, Cristina O’Callaghan of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya and Barcelona Institute for Global Health.  Oil extraction began there in the 1960s. In recent years, she lead research efforts looking at the health effects of exposure on the area’s indigenous residents to lead, present in the crude oil spills that dot the areas forests and waterways – also contaminating local wildlife.

A 2021 study of some 1047 people in 39 indigenous communities of the northern Peruvian Amazon found that 49% of children and 60% of adults had blood lead levels (BLLs) above the WHO Guideline of 5 micrograms per decilitre of blood. The study, published in Environment International, found mean blood levels in some areas as high as 8.1 µg/dL among children under the age of 12, and 8.8 µg/dL among older participants.

Mean blood lead levels (BLL) in the study population was higher than 5 μg/dL
49% of children and 60% of adults had BLL above this threshold

“There are several routes of exposure: skin absorption and inhalation, but also ingestion,” O’Callaghan said, citing another study that observed that 50% of hunted biomass in the area had been affected by oil pollution. Displaying images of animals with faces covered in oil, she described how animals often seek out oil slicks to lick up the salts that their bodies require – but in this case are toxic lead salts.

“It turned out consumption of wild game was also a factor,” she said. “From the animals, it was getting into humans.”

Health effects are both acute and long-term. One cross-sectional study published in 2016 by BMC that looked at communities living around oil fields in the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazon, as well as the Nigeria’s contaminated Delta region, catalogued health effects as ranging from respiratory, eye and skin symptoms, headache, nausea, dizziness and fatigue, to neurological and psychological disorders; reduction of lung function, genotoxicity and alterations in hormonal status.

“It is very important to have valid data on environmental exposures and conditions of life of understudied populations,” she continued. At the same time, since there is already overwhelming data about the health effects of lead, even at very low levels of exposure, “we should not wait. We do not need these complex studies to act.”

Air pollution in Mashhad, Iran

More than six million people die each year from air pollution

Pollution is the largest cause of death globally.

Even more pervasive than lead, is air pollution from ambient air and household air pollution sources – which accounts for some 7 million deaths annually, according to the World Health Organization’s latest report.

“It is estimated that 99% of the entire world’s population breathes air with unhealthy levels of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2)that threatens their health,” said Liz Arnanz Daugan of the NCD Alliance.

Daugan said that air pollution ranks up with unhealthy diets, physical inactivity and tobacco use as a leading but modifiable cause of noncommunicable disease.

While many people associate air pollution with respiratory diseases and lung cancer, air pollution at low levels of chronic exposures also is responsible for a significant proportion of deaths globally from heart disease, hypertension and cancers as well as having impacts on almost every other organ of the body somehow.

People are exposed to higher levels of air pollutants in Asia, Africa and the Middle East in their homes and on the streets – and they may also be exposed to higher levels of dust and chemical air pollutants in workplaces, particularly informal workplaces where enforcement of occupational health rules is poor or non-existent.

The case of Madagascar

Health impacts of pollution in Madagascar

Madagascar is a country whose air quality is considered “moderately unsafe,” according to WHO standards. Some 28,280 people died as a result of air pollution in the country in 2016, according to Tatiana Eddie Razafindravao, chargé d’affaires of the country’s UN Mission to Geneva and the UN, who also spoke during the GHF session.

Considering all forms of air, water and chemical pollution together, some 31% of all premature deaths in Madagascar are due to pollution, shared Razafindravao during the session, citing data from 2016. “That’s a loss of 3.3 million healthy life years in 2016 through exposure to pollution.”

The air pollution in Madagascar is a result mainly of emissions from vehicles, bushfires, brick making, use of fossil fuels, charcoal consumption and waste that is incinerated in urban spaces.

A few years ago, with the support of GAHP, the country decided to take action.

In 2018, it ratified a “Health and Pollution Action Plan” and established a pollution control taskforce. The Health and Environmental ministries started evaluating their pollution policies and made a national plan for health security and air pollution control.

“But we are not without challenges,” said Razafindravao, noting that the country lacks technical and financial support to move as quickly as it wants to against pollution. It is also sometimes difficult to convince the public to adopt new behaviours that are conducive to preserving the environment and protecting their health, she said.

“We are working on developing a 10-year roadmap for pollution management in collaboration with GAHP,” Razafindravao explained.

She said Madagascar also hoped to establish an independent institute for pollution and chemical management that will bring together state entities, academicians, the private sectors, NGOs and international organizations around solving the crisis.

But she added that national and international legal frameworks are also important – because those in turn compel more investments and enforcement.

Practical steps

Daugan called on countries to adopt, and more strictly enforce, tougher emission standards for key pollutants.  Those should include air quality standards that correspond to WHO guideline levels for PM2.5 and NO2.

More sustainable urban planning, particularly in cleaner transport systems can also make physical activity more feasible – for a double “co-benefit” to health.

Other measures include the removal of fossil fuel subsidies that amount to hundreds of billions of dollars a year in G-20 countries alone – and wreak trillions of dollars in health damage, she said.

Removal of such subsidies also would clear the way for redirecting more development investments toward health-promoting renewable energy; cleaner public transport, walking and cycling; and improved housing with access to clean energy sources.

“We must make addressing pollution a national and international priority,” Kupka concluded.

Image Credits: ISGlobal – Barcelona Institute of Global Health , Maayan Hoffman, GAHP , Screenshot of PowerPoint presented by Rachael Kupka on May 5, 2022 at the Geneva Health Forum, Screenshot, PowerPoint Slide, Cristina O’Callaghan on May 5, 2022, O'Callaghan-Gordo, C, et al. Environment International 2021, Mohammad Hossein Taaghi, GAHP.

Geneva Health Forum’s Global Health Lab showcased over 100 new diagnostics and treatment tools designed for resource-constrained settings. GICMED is one of the over 100 innovations and devices that were featured. These innovations are specifically suited for resource-limited settings in lower-income countries.

Dr Tankou Conrad — Founder, GICMED
Dr Tankou Conrad — Founder, GICMED

While global attention continues to be on the COVID-19 pandemic and outbreaks of other infectious diseases, Africa’s burgeoning cancer epidemic continues to rage on, and smart technologies are being considered as tools to potentially tackle the epidemic and bring respite to patients – especially women.

In Cameroon, available data showed about 6,000 women died of cancer in 2018, and according Professor Paul Ndom, president of Cameroon’s National Committee for Cancer Prevention, the risk of contracting COVID-19 in the hospitals has also discouraged many patients with cancer from coming to receive care in the clinics thus potentially worsening the cancer outlook in Cameroon.

Global Innovation and Creative Space (GIC Space), through its flagship product GICMED, hopes to reduce breast and cervical cancer death rates in Cameroon and, by extension, Africa’s underserved communities and rural settings that generally lack access to cancer care services.

Its founder, Dr Tankou Conrad told Health Policy Watch on the sidelines of the Geneva Health Forum that cancer care in Cameroon is negatively impacted by lack of access, a paucity of medical professionals that can screen for cancers and lack of cancer screening equipment.

The medical doctor-turned-technology-enthusiast said the innovation was inspired by his experience as a frontline healthcare practitioner in Cameroon’s rural community. 

“I had to witness, first hand, the challenges women face in accessing specialized breast and cervical cancer healthcare. This is the motivating factor behind it. Creating a solution that can be scaled anywhere so that every woman can access breast and cervical care is really what we are motivated to work on,” he said.

The GICMED approach

Conrad described GICMED as an innovative technology that specifically adapts to Sub-Saharan Africa and can work in rural settings such that every woman, irrespective of her location or status, can get screened and diagnosed within the community where she lives.

The GICMED bouquet of solutions includes a smart digital microscopy system, smart speculum, simple biopsy device, telemedicine platform and an e-training platform.

“They enable the medical data required by a specialist to be captured at the point-of-care by on-site nurses who are trained and are now sent to the medical specialist who can be found anywhere in the world. The specialist can make the diagnosis remotely and the woman can be planned for care thereafter,” he said.

The made-in-Cameroon solution is regarded as putting into context the adaptability for the targeted region. Conrad also revealed that pilots for the solutions have been conducted in Cameroon.

“The feedback has been very impressive because we have been able to bring to light, in an evidence-based manner, that using adapted technologies can enable women to get screened and diagnosed at the point-of-care even in the most remote settings.”

For the smart speculum technology, he said it also has a dual application of also serving as a colposcope. This means that “it is portable, easy-to-use and is about 100 times cheaper than what is obtained in developed countries”.

The innovation has been recognized by the Next Einstein Forum, Total Startupper program, and  was a finalist at the 2021 CISCO Global Problem Solver Challenge, among many other awards and recognitions. Dr Tankou was previously on the Quartz Africa Innovators top 30 list of pioneers.

Image Credits: Paul Adepoju.