WHO: War with Iran Paralyzes Dubai’s Global Humanitarian Supply Hub 05/03/2026 Elaine Ruth Fletcher The war in Iran has paralyzed the delivery of WHO supplies from Dubai’s humanitarian hub, the world’s largest. The US-Israeli war with Iran, which has paralyzed air travel across the Middle East, has also frozen deliveries of vital medical supplies from the world’s largest humanitarian supply hub in Dubai to conflict-wracked countries from Afghanistan to Lebanon, said the World Health Organization on Thursday. “Operations at WHO’s logistics hub for global health emergencies in Dubai, are currently on hold due to insecurity,” said WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a WHO press briefing in Geneva. WHO Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus speaks about the Iran war’s domino effect on medical supply routes throughout the region. The airspace closures as well as restrictions on cargo traffic through the Straits of Hormuz have put the hub’s operations “temporarily on hold,” echoed Hanan Balkhy, WHO Regional Director of the Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office (EMRO), at the briefing. She said that the disruption is preventing access to some $18 million in humanitarian health supplies, while another $8 million in shipments has been stranded and unable to reach the hub in Dubai. “More than 50 emergency supply requests from 25 countries are currently affected. And $6 million in medicines for Gaza as well as $1.6 million in polio laboratory supplies are also held up,” Balkhy said. WHO’s emergency operations across the region currently face a 70% funding gap, she added. “Without urgent financial support, essential services will cease and preventable suffering will deepen.” One-half of world’s humanitarian needs are in Eastern Mediterranean Region Hanan Balkhy, WHO Director of the Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office. The airspace and sea lane closures have had broad repercussions insofar as one-half of global humanitarian needs are concentrated in the eastern Mediterranean region – which extends from Pakistan all the way to Tunisia. The Dubai hub, alongside one of the world’s busiest airports, also serves as a logistics junction for WHO-supported medical supplies traveling to Africa, South-East Asia and beyond. “Last year, WHO’s global health emergencies logistics hub in Dubai fulfilled more than 500 emergency orders for 75 countries across all six WHO regions. However, humanitarian health supply chains are now being jeopardized,” said Balkhy. Deepening humanitarian crisis The crisis comes just as WHO and other humanitarian partners are attempting to pre-position trauma supplies and essential medicines in vulnerable regions, like southern Lebanon, in preparation for potential mass casualties -as well as population displacement. Israel on Wednesday ordered the evacuation of some 300,000 people from southern Lebanon and on Thursday evening called for the evacuation of all of Beirut’s southern suburbs – moves that will almost certainly lead to an even wider humanitarian crisis in the region. The Israeli moves on Lebanon came after Iran’s ally, the Shi’ite Hizbullah militia, entered the war earlier this week pounding northern and central Israel with repeated volleys of rocket fire. The war began last Saturday morning, when Israel and the US launched a surprise attack on Iranian military and missile sites – after negotiations to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions and missile arsenal faltered. Iran then sent missiles flying across the region, hitting not only Israel but Dubai’s airport, as well as military and civilian sites across the Gulf and as far away as Jordan. That has paralyzed air traffic, stranding hundreds of thousands of tourists and travelers in a widening arc of conflict. There are also concerns over a potential nuclear event as Israel and the United States target Iran’s nuclear facilities and Iran threatens retaliation against Israel’s nuclear facility in the Negev Desert region of Dimona, WHO’s Director General warned. “The threat of nuclear facilities being impacted is also concerning,” said Tedros. “Any compromise to nuclear safety could have serious public health consequences.” Efforts to carve out alternative supply routes Annette Heinzelmann As the arc of the war extends across most of the region’s air space, WHO is exploring alternative overland supply routes as an alternative to air transport together with UNICEF and the World Food Programme, said Annette Heinzelmann – EMRO emergency director “We are assessing the possibility of working through our other UN logistic hubs, notably in Nairobi and in Brindisi, which are close to the region… we are also working with our logistics hub in Dakar to look into alternative shipment routes,” Heinzelmann said “And there is the potential of local supply sources, as well as shipments through land routes,” she said, noting that the opportunities and barriers vary widely country by country – citing Afghanistan as an example where alternative routes of access are “highly complex.”. Impacts on Gaza Gaza tent camp amidst rain and rubble in January 2026. WHO describes progress in rehabilitation since the October 2025 cease-fire as ‘marginal.’ For Gaza, already devastated by two-years of war with Israel, the fresh conflict with Iran and Lebanon is a huge setback in an “extremely fragile situation,” she added. For the first few days of the war, Israel also closed key humanitarian aid corridors. Those have since been partially reopened, “but there is really not enough humanitarian aid going in. “And we still do not have enough patients [able to] leave Gaza to seek medical care outside. Tedros described the progress in Gaza since the October cease-fire as “marginal,” saying “we need 600 trucks to cross into Gaza every single day. But currently it’s not more than 100 between 100 or 150 – and some of those tracks are actually commercial, and that doesn’t really help with humanitarian services.” He also renewed an appeal to Israel to allow Gaza patients who can’t be treated properly in the enclave to access more specialized medical care in East Jerusalem. This, in light of the dearth of countries willing to take in the more than 10,000 Palestinians awaiting medical treatment abroad. “I’d like to use this opportunity to ask Israel to allow us to take patients to East Jerusalem and West Bank,” Tedros said.. Casualties and attacks on health facilities Since the war began in an early morning surprise attack by Israel and the United States on Saturday, 28 February, some 1000 people have been reportedly killed in Iran, according to the Islamic regime; 50 in Lebanon, 13 people in Israel and eleven in other countries, WHO said. In addition, WHO has verified 13 attacks on health care in Iran and one in Lebanon, according to Balkhy, citing data culled from WHO’s dashboard on attacks on healthcare facilities or health workers. The WHO dashboard, however, contains only data provided by the Islamic Regime. It has no records of the many reported regime attacks on health workers and hospitals during the month of January unrest. In that period, there were multiple, credible reports of heavily armed forces bursting into hospital emergency wards to obstruct care, arrest or kill injured patients as well as health care workers. Over the course of that month, the Iranian regime’s systematic killing of protestors led to an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 deaths – a death toll that the regime went to great extremes to conceal. During the current war, members of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its affiliated Basij paramilitary volunteers, are reportedly being embedded in schools, mosques and hospitals, making them targets of attack, according to independent news reports. KurdPa Human Rights news agency Instagram post Wednesday: Sanandaj – Forced evacuation of the Seyyed al-Shuhada private hospital and deployment of Revolutionary Guard forces. Speaking at the WHO press briefing, Heinzelmann said that she had no information about the incursion of armed forces in health facilities. Reached by Health Policy Watch, a WHO spokesperson did not explain why the January attacks on health facilities by regime forces were not included in the WHO dashboard of attacks on health care. However, the spokeperson noted that the Director General had posted a remark on X about some of the reported incidents. I am deeply concerned by multiple reports of health personnel and medical facilities in Iran being impacted by the recent insecurity, and prevented from delivering their essential services to people requiring care. In recent days, there have been reports of health workers… — Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) January 29, 2026 Image Credits: Dubai Humanitarian , Palestinian Water Authority , Instagram/Kurdpafarsi news agency. Historic HPV Vaccination Campaign in India to Boost Fight Against Cervical Cancer 05/03/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen India’s school-based HPV vaccination initiative is a critical gateway for reaching 12 million girls with the life-saving jab to prevent cervical cancer. India launched the most extensive free Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination initiative in history to systematically combat the rising toll of cervical cancer. This ambitious 90-day campaign aims to inoculate nearly 12 million 14-year-old girls before the preventative shot is permanently integrated into the country’s universal immunization schedule. Indian Minister of Health Jagat Prakash Nadda addresses the WHO press briefing on the global fight against cervical cancer. “India has joined the community of 160 countries in the global fight against cervical cancer,” stated India’s Minister of Health Jagat Prakash Nadda at a World Health Organization (WHO) press briefing on Thursday. WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus commended the Indian government’s leadership and congratulated their progress toward the WHO’s ambitious 90-70-90 elimination targets. This global strategy states that by the year 2030, 90% of girls must be vaccinated, 70% of women must be screened, and 90% of women with cervical cancer or precancerous lesions must receive treatment. HPV is a prevalent family of viruses that remains the leading cause of cervical cancer globally. Because of this direct viral link, administering the targeted HPV vaccine to young girls before they become sexually active is a highly effective clinical strategy proven to reduce cervical cancer cases by almost 90%. With its HPV vaccination campaign, India is combating an immense localized crisis, with over 127,000 women diagnosed with the cancer annually, leading to approximately 80,000 deaths. To address this, the government has already screened 86 million women across 181,000 specialized health and wellness centres nationwide. The massive logistics behind the immunization campaign is managed through India’s proprietary U-WIN digital platform, capturing end-to-end records of all immunizations and monitoring vaccine stocks to prevent critical supply shortages. African leadership in global HPV vaccination rates The WHO African region achieved a 47% first-dose HPV vaccination coverage rate for females in 2024, overtaking the European region. Concurrently, South Africa is drastically elevating its own historical battle against the devastating disease through high-level political intervention. A massive new national push to completely eliminate cervical cancer will be officially inaugurated by the country’s highest office in the coming weeks. “It is no longer the minister of health who is going to launch this campaign to end cervical cancer, it will be the president himself,” confirmed South African Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi. According to the WHO immunization dashboard, The African region has made spectacular strides in localized coverage, officially overtaking Europe to claim the second-highest first-dose HPV vaccination rate globally. Following setbacks in countries like Malawi, the African region’s trajectory – climbing from 9% in 2016 to 40% in 2023 and reaching 47% in 2024 – stands in stark contrast to Europe’s stagnation at 41%. For years, the South-East Asia region hovered around a staggering 3% coverage rate for females from 2016 to 2022. The region broke double digits in 2024 by reaching 14% coverage, and India’s newly announced campaign targeting 14-year-old girls guarantees this upward trajectory will continue swiftly. WHO Director of Immunization, Vaccines, and Biologicals Kate O’Brien speaks to major achievements in HPV immunization. This progress is largely attributed to the transition toward simplified, single-shot immunization regimens worldwide. “It makes the way of administering a vaccine so much easier,” explained WHO Director of Immunization, Vaccines, and Biologicals, Kate O’Brien. “We have some estimates that as a result of countries switching to the one dose schedule, something in excess of 30 million additional girls have been able to be vaccinated.” Community-driven strategies power South Africa’s rollout While financial constraints previously limited this life-saving intervention exclusively to public institutions, the official adoption of a single-dose regimen has fundamentally transformed the economic maths in South-Africa’s immunization efforts. This crucial shift allows South Africa to stretch its self-funded resources and expand its protective network into private and independent schools, which serve roughly 5% of the student population. Another key to success is South Africa’s distribution model that relies heavily on a collaborative framework between the health and basic education ministries. The ‘Integrated School Health Program’ utilizes dedicated school nurses to administer the HPV vaccine and engages with both parents and local school governing bodies. Nothemba Simelela, adviser to the South African Minister of Health, highlights the importance of a community-driven approach. Securing parental consent is a fundamental pillar of the rollout, with officials strategically bundling permission slips with annual school registration forms to maximize compliance. “Some of the nurses have given us feedback that they [the girls] just join the queue because they don’t want to be left behind by their peers, and it’s quite difficult to refuse to give such young girls the vaccination,” stated Nothemba (Nono) Simelela, adviser to the South African Minister of Health. Innovating HIV medication to tackle overlapping threats WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus commended India’s leadership in the global fight against cervical cancer. The underlying urgency to protect these vulnerable populations is driven by stark epidemiological realities regarding overlapping threats. Women living with HIV are six times more likely to develop cervical cancer compared to women without HIV, according to the WHO. Recognizing that overcoming this deadly coinfection crisis requires a two-front defence, South Africa is confronting its staggering HIV burden with groundbreaking pharmaceutical developments. Just today, the state announced its intention to begin locally manufacturing Lenacapavir, a highly preventative medication. This pharmaceutical is technically not a vaccine, but it operates as a long-acting antiretroviral injection administered every six months to high-risk individuals. In recent clinical trials, the preventative treatment has been shown to block almost all cases of HIV transmission among vulnerable demographics, Dr Tedros explained. Global health authorities have fast-tracked the drug’s approval process to ensure equitable international distribution as quickly as possible. “It’s the first time WHO has developed pre-qualification and guidelines in parallel not in sequence to speed up equitable access to innovative new tools,” announced the WHO Director-General. South Africa previously became the first nation in Africa to officially approve the preventative medication back in October last year. The planned massive rollout of this drug represents a fundamental shift in how the continent approaches its long-standing battle against the devastating HIV epidemic. Image Credits: Felix Sassmannshausen, Pravin via Canva. African Universities Launch Climate-Health Hubs Amidst Escalating Global Crisis 05/03/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen Intensified climate-health risks such as prolonged droughts are placing a strain on public health systems in Africa. Two regional research hubs that aim to develop climate adaptation strategies that reduce health impacts are to be established in Ghana and South Africa under the terms of a new £40 million climate-health initiative led by African universities and the Wellcome Trust, announced on Thursday. Along with the two hubs in South Africa and Ghana, an additional £20 million has been earmarked for a third hub in East Africa, with the site yet to be determined. The aim is to develop provide policymakers on the continent with tailor-made scientific data and strategies for shielding vulnerable populations from the intensifying health threats of extreme heat, flooding, air pollution and worsening nutrition – which already kill millions of people every year. “Africa is on the frontline of climate change, with women and marginalized communities already suffering the worst health impacts,” stressed Charlotte Watts, Executive Director of Solutions at the Wellcome Trust, in Thursday’s statement. The hubs will link scientists across diverse disciplines along with policymakers, and community partners, to generate effective strategies protecting human health. The South African hub, anchored at the University of the Witwatersrand, will address extreme heat in South Africa and Zimbabwe, alongside issues like devastating flooding in Malawi. The goal is to overcome the knowledge and financial barriers constraining essential care for affected communities, according to consortium lead Matthew Chersich, Professor at the Wits Planetary Health Research Division. Meanwhile, the Western Africa consortium anchored at Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, will tackle environmental hazards that are characteristic of that region, such as intense dust storms and prolonged droughts along with heat waves. Intensifying climate risks are straining fragile public health systems and disrupting livelihoods across the region, warned the Western Africa lead Philip Antwi-Agyei, Professor of Climate Change and Sustainability Science. Adelheid Onyango (WHO) emphasizes the need for rigorous data to support health leaders making vital decisions. Currently, uncoordinated policies pose a massive challenge to protecting vulnerable populations in nations like Ghana and Senegal, Antwi-Agyei argued. “Health leaders across Africa make vital decisions with limited resources, so having access to rigorous, context-relevant evidence is essential,” added Adelheid Onyango, Director of the Health Systems and Services Cluster at the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa. A continent bearing a disproportionate climate-health burden Lancet Countdown 2025: 12 of 20 climate-health indicators are now at catastrophic levels, including a sharp rise in heat-related deaths globally. This African initiative arrives against a grim global backdrop, as the 2025 Lancet Countdown report recently revealed that 12 out of 20 key climate-health indicators have hit catastrophic records. Extreme heat exposure alone claimed an estimated 546,000 lives annually over the last decade. Some 2.5 million people are estimated to die every year from air pollution generated by fossil fuel use. While Africa contributes minimally to global emissions, it bears the greatest burden of climate change. Compounding these health vulnerabilities is a massive infrastructure deficit, with roughly 600 million Africans still lacking basic access to electricity. Consequently, about half of the health centres in sub-Saharan Africa suffer from unreliable power, severely disrupting emergency care and vaccine refrigeration capabilities. Furthermore, the world’s poorest countries are now spending more on debt service than on healthcare, education, and infrastructure combined. This ongoing debt trap leaves health systems chronically underfunded and unable to cope with rising climate-health disease burdens. African member states fought hard to support the full adoption of a new WHO action plan on climate change and health, approved by the World Health Assembly in May 2025 The initiative actively encourages countries to transition their critical health facilities toward reliable, renewable energy sources to boost overall climate-health resilience. Building a climate-health fortress of evidence Modi Mwatsama, Wellcome. Ensuring African communities possess the necessary expertise to navigate the complex challenges of climate change is a pillar of Wellcome’s climate and health strategy. The new consortiums hold massive potential to foster essential innovation, Modi Mwatsama, Head of Capacity and Field Development at Wellcome stated. Looking ahead, the hubs also will pioneer health-centred approaches to reducing carbon emissions – building more stakeholder support for climate mitigation and the carbon transition. And they will also prioritize delivering specialized care solutions for the most at-risk demographic groups, including pregnant women, children, and older individuals. Advocates view the integration of scientific rigour and local policymaking as a crucial step toward achieving more robust climate-health policies and broader climate justice for the global South. The funding will help build a stronger “fortress of evidence” that the world urgently requires right now, said Philip Kilonzo, of the PanAfrican Climate Justice Alliance. Image Credits: piyaset/Getty Images via Canva, WHO, Felix Sassmannshausen, Wellcome Trust. Urgent Need to Expand Access to GLP-1 Medicine to Reduce Obesity 04/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan Most people with obesity now live in low and middle-income countries. WORLD OBESITY DAY – Most people living with obesity are now in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), according to the World Obesity Federation (WOF) – yet people living in these countries are least likely to have access to the Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 (GLP-1) medicine that is transforming treatment outcomes in wealthier countries. Around one billion people are currently living with obesity, and four billion people – almost half the world’s population – are projected to be overweight or obese by 2035. Obesity in children has risen from 4% in 1975 to 20% by 2025. People with obesity are at greater risk of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), particularly heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure and diabetes. The GLP-1 drugs are transforming obesity treatment after years of behaviour-based policy interventions have failed to stop the rise of obesity. In clinical trials of newer GLP-1 drugs such as semaglutide (Wegovy), obese patients without diabetes lose 15%–25% of their body weight over 12 to 18 months. The World Health Organization (WHO) issued its first guidelines for their use to address obesity last December. (Several have already been approved as essential drugs to treat type 2 diabetes). Around 10 million people in the US were estimated to be on GLP-1 drugs in 2025, and this is projected to rise to 25 million by 2030. Australians, New Zealanders and Europeans are also embracing the drugs. Scarce and expensive But these medicines are scarce in LMICs despite the growing need. Between 2010 and 2022, obesity more than doubled across all LMICs and tripled in low-income countries, according to the WOF. In South Africa, for example, the prevalence of obesity in adults rose by 38% between 1998 and 2017, affecting 28% of the adult population, with women having double the rate of men. But GLP-1 drugs are “currently prohibitively expensive, prone to massive repeated supply shortages, and unavailable from state clinics and most medical aids”, according to South African clinicians Dr Francois Venter and Dr Nomathemba Chandiwana. The monthly cost of the medication varies from around $100 to $300, way out of the reach of the vast majority of South Africans. Only four of the 20 countries most impacted or projected to be most impacted by rising obesity rates cover obesity medicine in their public health systems, according to the Economist Impact’s Global Obesity Response Index. Only the UK covers all four forms of evidence-based obesity care – nutrition counselling, intensive behavioural therapy, medications, and metabolic and bariatric surgery –through public insurance. Canada, China, Mexico, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa offer no national-level coverage of any of these interventions. “Without deep price reductions and scalable care systems, obesity treatment will remain out of reach, and health systems will continue to absorb the far higher costs of untreated disease,” according to the Medicines Patent Pool this week. However, access to GLP-1 medicine should improve as the key compound patents for semaglutide (Wegovy) expire within the next few months, with generic medicine poised to enter the market. Curbing ultra-processed food Unhealthy food habits drive obesity While medicine is key to reducing obesity, so too are policy measures to rein in the industries that promote ultra-processed food that drives the condition. Key interventions are high taxes on ultra-processed food and sugary drinks; front-of-package warning labels on food high in sugar, salt and fat; and restrictions on marketing these products to children. However, of the 20 most affected countries, only one – Mexico – taxes both unhealthy foods and drinks, according to the Global Obesity Response Index. Only three – Brazil, Canada, and Mexico – require front-of-package nutrition labelling. Image Credits: Flip. First Vaccines in Three Years Reach Besieged Sudanese State 03/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan A UNICEF-supported mobile clinic provides healthcare to people displaced by violence in Darfur, Sudan. The first vaccines to reach Sudan’s South Kordofan state in nearly three years were delivered this week, according to Save the Children. South Kordofan has not received any vaccines since July 2023 due to a siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF),which has blocked medical and humanitarian supplies. “This left thousands of children without protection from preventable disease at a time when malnutrition and displacement were putting them at heightened risk,” said Save the Children. The organisation delivered two truckloads containing 18 metric tons of routine vaccines to Kadugli town in the south-central state over the past few days. The shipment includes the tuberculosis BCG vaccine, oral polio vaccine (OPV) and pentavalent vaccine (against diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B, whooping cough and Hib), as well as vaccines for rotavirus, pneumococcal, measles, meningococcal A, inactivated and Yellow Fever. The vaccines, funded by Gavi, will support immunisation in five localities, including Kadugli where famine was confirmed in September 2025. Families in Al Reif Alshargi, Aldalang, Habila and Al Goos will also benefit, with more than 24,500 children set to receive routine vaccinations this year. In addition, nearly 6,000 women will receive the tetanus vaccine. “Vaccines are one of the simplest and most effective tools we have to prevent child deaths,” said Dr Bashir Kamal Eldin, Save the Children’s health and nutrition director in Sudan. “This vaccine delivery is a breakthrough for thousands of children and mothers who have endured months without reliable access to food and basic health services, conditions that have put their lives at serious risk.” However, Eldin warned that the situation remains extremely fragile: “Without sustained peace and guaranteed humanitarian access, these gains could quickly be reversed.” ‘Humanitarian catastrophe’ The World Health Organization (WHO) has described the situation in Sudan as a “humanitarian catastrophe of staggering dimensions” in its latest report on the conflict. The WHO estimates that 33,7 million people require assistance. Some 11.5 million people have been forcibly displaced, with over 4.2 million fleeing into neighbouring countries. Chad recently closed its border with Sudan as it cannot cope with the influx of refugees. “More than 21.2 million people are experiencing acute food insecurity,” said the WHO, with violence disrupting food and aid supply chains and agricultural production. Some areas, including El Fasher (North Darfur) and Kadugli (South Kordofan), are facing famine, categorised as “Integrated Phase Classification Phase 5 (IPC Phase 5)”, when over 20% of households face an extreme lack of food and over 30% of children face acute malnutrition. “The latest nutrition survey in Um Baru (North Darfur) recorded a Global Acute Malnutrition rate of 53%, of which 35% were classified as Severe Acute Malnutrition. Coupled with high rates of malnutrition, an overstretched health system and low immunisation coverage, this increases the risk of disease outbreaks and their catastrophic impacts,” said the WHO. “Multiple disease outbreaks are occurring simultaneously, including cholera, dengue, malaria, measles, hepatitis E, and diphtheria. “Over 40 000 injuries have been reported amid the ongoing conflict. Civilians continue to be killed, injured and displaced in ongoing attacks in the Darfur and Kordofan regions. Sexual violence remains pervasive.” Between 15 April 2023 and 31 December 2025, the WHO has formally validated 201 attacks on health care, 1,858 deaths and 490 injuries. “Many health facilities have been destroyed, looted, or are functioning with severe shortages of staff, medicines, vaccines, equipment, and supplies,” the WHO concludes. Image Credits: Mohammed Jamal / UNICEF. Ghana and Senegal Consider Harsher Measures Against LGBTQ People 03/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan Senegal’s President Ousmane Sonko. The Parliaments of both Ghana and Senegal are considering harsher penalties for same-sex relationships. Last month, Ghana’s Parliament had its first reading of an anti-LGBTQ Bill, which is now being considered by its Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. Meanwhile, Senegal’s Cabinet approved a Bill for its Parliament last month that will double the maximum penalty for same sex relationships – up to 10 years in prison. Ghana passed an anti-LGBTQ bill in 2024, but it was not signed into law by the country’s then-president, Nana Akufo-Addo. The current president, John Mahama, was elected in 2024 and has stated his readiness to pass anti-LGBTQ laws. Ghana’s Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill is similar to the one passed in 2024, and contains some of the most wide-ranging legal restrictions on human sexuality. First off, the Bill aims to criminalise LGBTTQAP+ people. This applies to “a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, ally, pansexual or a person of any other sexual orientation that is contrary to the sociocultural relationship between a male and a female”. Any sexual activities by LGBTTQAP+ people will get a prison sentence of between two months and three years. Meanwhile, “gross indecency” – defined as a “public show of romantic relations” or “cross-dressing” can get six to 12 months in prison. LGBTTQAP+ organisations are also banned. Ghanaians have a duty to report transgressions. The Bill also requires “parents, teachers, religious bodies, media and state institutions” to “promote and protect… human sexual rights and family values” and ensure they are “preserved and integrated into the fabric of national life.” Senegal’s Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, who also came to power in 2024, told his Parliament that the Bill will punish “acts against nature” with prison sentences from five to 10 years. US Speeds up Signing of Bilateral Health Agreements, DRC Lawyers Challenge Minerals Deal 02/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan DRC Health Minister Dr Roger Kamba, US Charge D’Affaires in DRC, Ian McCary, DRC Prime Minister Judith Tuluka Suminwa and Finance Minister Doudou Fwamba, at the signing of the health MOU last week. The United States has moved at speed to secure several new bilateral health Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) in the past week, including, for the first time, four in Latin America – with the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala and Panama. To date (2 March), the US has signed 24 bilateral health MOUs in terms of the Trump administration’s America First Global Health Strategy. Announcing its agreement with Panama, the first MOU within Latin America, the US State Department described it as “strengthening Western hemisphere health security”, which it added is “a priority”. The four Latin American agreements involve smaller grants and are almost wholly focused on disease surveillance. The other 20 bilateral agreements are all with African countries – mostly previous recipients of health grants via the now disbanded US Agency for International Development (USAID) and decimated US President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Several of these countries are facing dire shortages of medicines for HIV, tuberculosis, and maternal and child health as a result of the US withdrawal of funds. The five-year MOUs are aimed at rapidly transferring financial responsibility for these key health services to countries themselves – as some, such as Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – derived over half their HIV budgets from donors, particularly the US. In the DRC, for example, at least half the antiretroviral medication it used was covered by the US. High parting price However, the parting price for these transitional MOUs includes extensive investment in infectious disease surveillance networks. The aim is to supply the US with pathogen information within a week of any outbreak to not only “keep America safe” but to give US firms exclusive access to pathogen information, which will enable them to make vaccines, medicines and diagnostics to combat these. The US-DRC MOU, signed on 26 February, focuses extensively on “strengthening the DRC’s capacity to detect and contain infectious disease outbreaks before they spread internationally”, according to a US State Department statement. The DRC has experienced recent Ebola outbreaks and, for the past year, the biggest mpox outbreak in the world. According to the MOU, the US commits to investing up to $900 million over five years and the DRC commits to increasing its health expenditure by $300 million. The bulk of the money will go into “a national integrated surveillance and outbreak response system, including a high-quality laboratory network capable of detecting and investigating infectious disease outbreaks within seven days”. “Under this system, relevant authorities, including the United States and other partners, will coordinate epidemic preparedness and rapid response measures to contain outbreaks and prevent their spread to neighboring areas,” according to the statement. The MOU also aims to modernise data and disease surveillance systems with “enhanced electronic medical records and interoperable platforms”, professionalise community health workers and “expand integrated delivery of essential health services for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, polio, and maternal and child health”. First, the minerals… Guinea and the US signed a minerals MOU before the health MOU. The US held off signing an MOU with the DRC in terms of its “America First Global Health Strategy” on 5 December, when it signed deals with Rwanda and Kenya on the sidelines of the signing of a peace accord between Rwanda and the DRC. Instead, the US and the DRC signed a “strategic partnership agreement” to “promote secure, reliable, and mutually beneficial critical mineral flows for commercial and defense purposes”. The DRC is one of the world’s most important sources of rare earth minerals, but China has dominated the purchasing and processing of its minerals. In the past two months, the DRC has opened its rare minerals supply to the US. In late January, the DRC sent the US a shortlist of state-owned assets involving manganese, copper, cobalt, gold and lithium, for US investors to consider as part of a minerals partnership, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, the US MOU with Guinea, signed on 27 February, was also preceded by a minerals MOU, signed with the US on 5 February, giving the US access to “critical minerals”. The health MOU prioritises strengthening the country’s “laboratory networks with biosafety and biosecurity management aligned with international standards by 2027”. Legal backlash in DRC But not all countries want to exchange their minerals and other assets for aid. A group of lawyers in the DRC are challenging the minerals MOU in their Constitutional Court, arguing that it violates the country’s Constitution in various ways, including undermining national sovereignty over natural resources. “By filing this case with the Constitutional Court, we are assuming our responsibility as Congolese citizens to protect the sovereignty of our country and safeguard our patrimony for future generations,” said attorney Jean-Marie Kalonji, one of the plaintiffs. The case has yet to be heard. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe recently backed out of talks with the US as it was unhappy with what the US required from it in terms of outbreaks. “Zimbabwe was being asked to share its biological resources and data over an extended period, with no corresponding guarantee of access to any medical innovations—such as vaccines, diagnostics, or treatments—that might result from that shared data,” explained Nick Mangwana, Secretary for Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services. “In essence, our nation would provide the raw materials for scientific discovery without any assurance that the end products would be accessible to our people should a future health crisis emerge. The United States, meanwhile, was not offering reciprocal sharing of its own epidemiological data with our health authorities.” Kenya’s MOU with the US, the first of the series, has been halted by the country’s High Court as it faces two separate court challenges for giving the US access to patient data and pathogen information. The government of Zambia acknowledged last week that it is unhappy with part of a proposed health aid deal with the United States that “does not align with the country’s interests” and has requested “revisions” to the MOU. The Zambia-US bilateral health deal was due to be signed last December, but it faltered after the US linked the billion-dollar deal to access to Zambian minerals, particularly copper and cobalt. Just four days before the MOU was due to be signed, the US announced that the two countries had committed to a plan to unlock “a substantial grant package of US support in exchange for collaboration in the mining sector and clear business sector reforms that will drive economic growth and commercial investment that benefit both the United States and Zambia”. ‘Extractive’ policy Sophie Harman, professor of international politics at Queen Mary University of London, argues in last week’s BMJ that “extraction is the core principle of US President Donald Trump’s America First global health policy”. “The current US administration does not aim to improve health worldwide, instead it intends to make US companies richer and facilitate ‘leveraging US global health leadership to compete with China’,” writes Harman. “Entering a deal with the US government is a potential lose-lose for states. These countries risk losing resources and opportunities for wealth creation in their own countries, threatening alliances with China for relatively small advances in health, and creating political turmoil in domestic courts.” Europe is Failing to Curb Tobacco Use – Especially in Women 28/02/2026 Kerry Cullinan Smoking prevalence is higher amongst European women than anywhere else in the world. Europe is failing to curb tobacco use – particularly in women and girls – and will have the world’s highest prevalence by 2030, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) European region revealed this week. Of the region’s 53 states, tobacco use is highest in Serbia, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Montenegro – all exceeding 30% prevalence in people over the age of 14. The global average for tobacco use in people aged 15 and over is 19.5%, while in the WHO European Region it is 24.1%. The rate of female smokers is the highest in the world at 17.3% – or one in five women. This is almost double the prevalence of the next highest region, 9.1% in the Americas. Europe is the only WHO region not expected to meet the global target of a 30% reduction in tobacco use among women by 2025. It is currently projected to achieve only a 12% reduction between 2010 and 2025. “The 62 million female smokers in the European Region represent over 40% of the 143 million female smokers in the world,” according to the WHO, which released 10 new factsheets on tobacco consumption this week. “European girls aged 13 to 15 now have the highest tobacco use rates among their age group anywhere in the world,” continued Kluge. “That is not an accident, it’s the result of deliberate industry strategy targeting young people with flavoured products and sophisticated social media marketing. “Countries like Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands are proving it is possible to push back – by regulating novel products, banning flavours and restricting advertising. Every country in this region should be doing the same, to protect future generations.” Slow decreases While Europe’s tobacco consumption is decreasing, it is happening fairly slowly. In 2000, 47,5% of European men used tobacco, and by 2025 this was 30,3%. In women, tobacco use decreased from 22,3% in 2000 to 17,3% in 2025. “Tobacco use already causes over 1.1 million deaths from noncommunicable diseases in the European Region each year – and without accelerated action, we will stay the worst-performing region in the world by 2030,” said Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe. “We have a responsibility to change course now: to shield young people from nicotine addiction, prevent industry interference in health policy, and enforce the regulations that will prevent a lifetime of avoidable harm.” Uneven use of taxes Tax increases are being applied in some European countries – and in 28 countries, taxes represented more than 75% of the retail price of the most popular brand of cigarettes in 2024 – an increase from 16 countries in 2008. Twelve countries have increased prices since 2014, including Belgium, Czechia, Finland, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, North Macedonia, Slovakia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Uzbekistan. But cigarettes have become more affordable in 19 countries – up from just nine in 2022 – which may lead to higher smoking initiation, the WHO warned. Cigarettes are cheapest in Belarus, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan, and most expensive in Turkmenistan, Ireland, the UK and France. Uneven regulation Regulating e-cigarettes is uneven across the region. The region has the second-highest e-cigarette use prevalence in the world, with an estimated 31.4 million users, and regulation of e-cigarettes is fragmented. “Decades of progress are at risk unless policies keep pace with a rapidly evolving nicotine landscape,” said Kristina Mauer-Stender, Regional Adviser for Tobacco Control at WHO/Europe. “Applying the same strong tobacco control tools to new and emerging products is essential if we want to protect young people and sustain public health gains.” The fact sheets show that, while most countries in the region have strong tobacco monitoring systems and require large health warnings on packaging, implementation is uneven across other measures. Only 18 countries have comprehensive smoke-free laws covering all public spaces. Just 12 provide national quit lines and cover the cost of cessation services. Comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising and promotion exist in only 13 countries. Image Credits: Zaya Odeesho/ Unsplash, pixabay. WHO Updates Flu Vaccine in Response to Rapid Spread of New Variant 27/02/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen Dr Maria Van Kerkhove (2nd left) , Dr Wenqing Zhang, Dr Richard Webby and Prof Nicola Lewis present the WHO recommendation for the seasonal flu vaccine composition. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced its updated recommendations for the 2026-2027 Northern Hemisphere seasonal flu vaccine on Friday, a critical adjustment driven by the rapid global dominance of a new A(H3N2) variant known as subclade K. Following four days of intense consultation by the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS), experts finalized the flu vaccine composition to ensure it matches circulating threats. While announcing these seasonal updates at a press conference on Friday, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s Director ad interim for Epidemic and Pandemic Management, pointed to the broader danger of respiratory viruses, warning that “the threat of an influenza pandemic is real and everpresent”. She emphasized the critical need for flu vaccination to protect against severe disease and death. There are around a billion cases of seasonal influenza annually, including three to five million cases of severe illness. It causes an estimated 290,000 to 650,000 respiratory deaths annually, according to the WHO. Updated flu vaccine in response to rapid rise of new variant ‘subclade K’ A series of frequency charts illustrate the global dominance of the A(H3N2) subclade K variant. Since its sudden emergence in July and August of 2025, subclade K (scientifically classified as J.2.4.1) has rapidly spread globally, shifting the baseline of flu activity and replacing earlier dominant strains. This variant now accounts for the majority of influenza viruses reported across multiple regions. To react to this development, WHO issued two recommendations: Egg-based flu vaccines for the upcoming season include an A/Missouri/11/2025 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus, an A/Darwin/1454/2025 (H3N2)-like virus, and a B/Tokyo/EIS13-175/2025 (B/Victoria lineage)-like virus. Cell-based flu vaccines will similarly target the Missouri and Darwin strains, alongside a B/Pennsylvania/14/2025-like virus. Notably, the B/Yamagata lineage remains excluded from the formula, as no cases of this lineage have been documented since March 2020. Shifting flu seasons across hemispheres Prof Nicola Lewis highlighted prolonged influenza activity in the Southern Hemisphere (right). The unchecked spread of subclade K has significantly altered the traditional flu calendar. According to Professor Nicola Lewis, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre at the Francis Crick Institute in London, the Southern Hemisphere experienced complex disease dynamics. While the season began with H1 dominance, the sudden arrival of H3 subclade K extended the flu’s impact considerably in countries like Australia, she explained in a briefing on Friday. New Flu Strain Sweeping Europe Says WHO; but Vaccines Remain Effective, ECDC Finds Consequently, the virus’s spread caused the Northern Hemisphere to experience an unusually early start to its own influenza season, with countries such as the United Kingdom and Japan recording surges weeks ahead of historical averages. Zoonotic threats and pandemic preparedness Dr Richard Webby noted that while zoonotic threats primarily impact animal populations, the WHO remains on high alert for potential human infections. Beyond seasonal strains, health authorities remain on high alert regarding the dangers of avian and swine influenza. Globally, A(H5) viruses maintain a robust presence in bird populations across almost all regions except Oceania. Notably, spillover events into humans have recently included atypical subtypes like A(H5N2) in Mexico and A(H5N5) in the United States, causing disease ranging from moderate to fatal. Since September 2025, 25 human infections involving zoonotic influenza have been reported across six countries, primarily linked to direct animal exposure without evidence of human-to-human transmission. Fourteen of these cases involved H9N2 infections detected in China, noted Dr Richard Webby, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, USA. In response to slight evolutionary changes in these animal viruses, WHO is proactively recommending the development of an updated Candidate Vaccine Virus (CVV) for avian influenza A(H9N2) to ensure global pandemic preparedness is not caught off guard. Prioritizing vaccination and combatting misinformation Van Kerkhove highlighted that safe and effective vaccines remain the primary defense. With a highly transmissible strain circulating, experts reiterate that safe and effective flu vaccines remain the primary defense, particularly for vulnerable populations and healthcare workers. However, WHO is not ignoring public hesitancy. Van Kerkhove emphasized that global health leaders must actively listen to communities and take their concerns seriously. “We are listening to people. There are legitimate questions that need to be answered,” she affirmed, noting that WHO is collaborating with community and faith-based leaders to combat willful misinformation campaigns and empower individuals to make informed health decisions. Image Credits: Felix Sassmannshausen. Drone Busts Delhi’s Spring Clean Air Myth 27/02/2026 Chetan Bhattacharji Drone footage dispels the myth the Delhi’s air pollution improves in spring. NEW DELHI – For years, residents of the Indian capital have looked to the skies in March with a sense of relief, believing that the notorious winter pollution had finally retreated. However, a drone armed with an air quality monitor has shattered this perception, revealing a massive blanket of toxic air hovering just above the city’s skyline. This vertical pollution acts like a pollution lid over the capital. It also contains unexpectedly high concentrations of dangerous particles that ground-level monitors often fail to capture. Dark surprise in the spring sky The study indicates the vast scale of Delhi’s pollution. One of the authors, Prof Sagnik Dey of theIndian Institute of Technology (ITT) Delhi, estimates this to be roughly 240,000 kgs, equivalent to some 1,200 oil drums. “Taking Delhi, 30 km by 40 km, and considering PM2.5 up to 1 km, we are talking 1200 km3 volume of air,” Dey told Health Policy Watch. “When PM2.5 is 200 ug/m3 on a day, we are talking about 2,40,000 kg of particles to be cleaned out.” Another surprise is that this smog blanket occurred in mid-March when climatic conditions, including and temperature, favour the dispersal of pollution, unlike in winter. The study was conducted by a team at IIT Delhi, from its South Delhi campus between 11-23 March, 2021. The research, published in Nature this month, shows that while the air at street level might seem manageable, the atmosphere 100 metres above the ground was 60% more toxic. The new findings raise questions about how much of Delhi’s air crisis is driven by local sources and why current emergency measures are failing to clear the sky. There is a lot of complex chemistry at work, churning out the lethal cocktail of pollutants. The ingredients and level of pollution change depending on whether it is morning, noon, evening or night. The authors – numbering 20 from institutions in nine countries ranging from the UK to China – say that the study provides enough impetus to study the pollution above the city more deeply, using drones, to improve models and policy action to reduce air pollution. Toxic mornings The most dangerous window for residents is between 5am and 8am, when a “suppressed planetary boundary layer” acts like a physical ceiling below 200 metres altitude, trapping pollutants near the surface thanks to factors like cooler air, low/no wind, and humidity levels. The planetary boundary layer (PBL) can be as low as 50m and as high as a couple of thousand, depending on the temperature, time of day or year, and other factors. Usually, the higher the PBL, the lower the concentration of pollutants at ground level, which is why in summer the level of particulate matter tends to be lower in hot places like Delhi. On one day, the study found PM2.5 concentrations reached a staggering 160 µg/m³ (micrograms/cubic metre) at an altitude of 100m, typically the height of a 30-storey residential building. Ground monitors recorded only 100 µg/m³; WHO’s daily safe limit is 15 µg/m³. The altitude of the toxic haze shows the strength of local emissions and regional transport, Dey says. “This calls for prioritising emission reduction as the main mitigation strategy through systemic long-term measures rather than short-term emergency measures trying to filter this large volume of toxic air,” he added. The Delhi government has resorted to using hundreds of water sprinklers on trucks and buildings to subdue dust. In the past, it built ‘smog towers’, essentially outdoor air purifiers, before conceding these are ineffective. As the sun rises and the ground warms, this “lid” expands, allowing the toxic air to disperse into higher altitudes. By noon and into the early evening, the air becomes significantly clearer, with temperatures reaching 30-35°C and humidity dropping to 40-50%. What causes Delhi’s pollution peaks? Delhi air pollution during peak pollution days in mid-November. The report breaks down a list of pollutants, secondary pollutants formed as a result of primary pollutants and other factors like temperature and chemical reactions. The chemicals produced include chloride, black carbon or soot, sulphur dioxide to some extent from coal combustion, nitrogen dioxide and ozone, especially during traffic rush hour. These are emitted by burning biomass, solid fuels, waste, and from industries. An increase in the levels of chloride and black carbon are linked to the burning of biomass and solid fuel, which could be in waste as well. Tackling waste burning has often been identified by experts as a top priority to reduce the region’s air pollution. Exposure to these pollutants, particularly fine particulate matter like black carbon, is linked to severe respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, including asthma, lung cancer, and strokes. Additionally, nitrogen dioxide and ground-level ozone can significantly reduce lung function and trigger chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations. Traffic is a prime suspect A significant cause for this hovering haze is the city’s roads. The report highlights the staggering impact of vehicular pollution, noting that traffic contributes 40-50% of PM2.5 during peak hours. In areas near major traffic corridors, the drones detected high levels of “equivalent black carbon,” a particularly soot-heavy component of exhaust. This traffic-led pollution does not simply blow away. Instead, emissions from the millions of vehicles on Delhi’s roads build up overnight, trapped by the shallow boundary layer. This nocturnal build-up is further complicated by other local sources, including waste burning, industrial activities, and residential cooking. The study found that chloride, often linked to the burning of plastic and electronic waste, spiked in the early hours of the morning, acting as a chemical trigger that causes particles to grow and thicken the haze. Call for more drones To capture this data, researchers utilised a custom-designed drone platform built by an Indian start-up, BotLab Dynamics. The drone, weighing roughly 7.5 kg, was equipped with a modified low-cost sensor (LCS). The study involved 40 separate drone flights near heavy traffic corridors. However, back in March 2021, time was tight due to Covid restrictions. Now, the authors have called for more drone-based surveillance, at higher altitudes, and with better equipment. In the right conditions, tons of these pollutants can descend and threaten public health. Image Credits: Gustaf von Zeipel/ Unsplash, Chetan Bhattacharji. Posts navigation Older postsNewer posts This site uses cookies to help give you the best experience on our website. Cookies enable us to collect information that helps us personalise your experience and improve the functionality and performance of our site. By continuing to read our website, we assume you agree to this, otherwise you can adjust your browser settings. Please read our cookie and Privacy Policy. Our Cookies and Privacy Policy Loading Comments... You must be logged in to post a comment.
Historic HPV Vaccination Campaign in India to Boost Fight Against Cervical Cancer 05/03/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen India’s school-based HPV vaccination initiative is a critical gateway for reaching 12 million girls with the life-saving jab to prevent cervical cancer. India launched the most extensive free Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination initiative in history to systematically combat the rising toll of cervical cancer. This ambitious 90-day campaign aims to inoculate nearly 12 million 14-year-old girls before the preventative shot is permanently integrated into the country’s universal immunization schedule. Indian Minister of Health Jagat Prakash Nadda addresses the WHO press briefing on the global fight against cervical cancer. “India has joined the community of 160 countries in the global fight against cervical cancer,” stated India’s Minister of Health Jagat Prakash Nadda at a World Health Organization (WHO) press briefing on Thursday. WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus commended the Indian government’s leadership and congratulated their progress toward the WHO’s ambitious 90-70-90 elimination targets. This global strategy states that by the year 2030, 90% of girls must be vaccinated, 70% of women must be screened, and 90% of women with cervical cancer or precancerous lesions must receive treatment. HPV is a prevalent family of viruses that remains the leading cause of cervical cancer globally. Because of this direct viral link, administering the targeted HPV vaccine to young girls before they become sexually active is a highly effective clinical strategy proven to reduce cervical cancer cases by almost 90%. With its HPV vaccination campaign, India is combating an immense localized crisis, with over 127,000 women diagnosed with the cancer annually, leading to approximately 80,000 deaths. To address this, the government has already screened 86 million women across 181,000 specialized health and wellness centres nationwide. The massive logistics behind the immunization campaign is managed through India’s proprietary U-WIN digital platform, capturing end-to-end records of all immunizations and monitoring vaccine stocks to prevent critical supply shortages. African leadership in global HPV vaccination rates The WHO African region achieved a 47% first-dose HPV vaccination coverage rate for females in 2024, overtaking the European region. Concurrently, South Africa is drastically elevating its own historical battle against the devastating disease through high-level political intervention. A massive new national push to completely eliminate cervical cancer will be officially inaugurated by the country’s highest office in the coming weeks. “It is no longer the minister of health who is going to launch this campaign to end cervical cancer, it will be the president himself,” confirmed South African Minister of Health Aaron Motsoaledi. According to the WHO immunization dashboard, The African region has made spectacular strides in localized coverage, officially overtaking Europe to claim the second-highest first-dose HPV vaccination rate globally. Following setbacks in countries like Malawi, the African region’s trajectory – climbing from 9% in 2016 to 40% in 2023 and reaching 47% in 2024 – stands in stark contrast to Europe’s stagnation at 41%. For years, the South-East Asia region hovered around a staggering 3% coverage rate for females from 2016 to 2022. The region broke double digits in 2024 by reaching 14% coverage, and India’s newly announced campaign targeting 14-year-old girls guarantees this upward trajectory will continue swiftly. WHO Director of Immunization, Vaccines, and Biologicals Kate O’Brien speaks to major achievements in HPV immunization. This progress is largely attributed to the transition toward simplified, single-shot immunization regimens worldwide. “It makes the way of administering a vaccine so much easier,” explained WHO Director of Immunization, Vaccines, and Biologicals, Kate O’Brien. “We have some estimates that as a result of countries switching to the one dose schedule, something in excess of 30 million additional girls have been able to be vaccinated.” Community-driven strategies power South Africa’s rollout While financial constraints previously limited this life-saving intervention exclusively to public institutions, the official adoption of a single-dose regimen has fundamentally transformed the economic maths in South-Africa’s immunization efforts. This crucial shift allows South Africa to stretch its self-funded resources and expand its protective network into private and independent schools, which serve roughly 5% of the student population. Another key to success is South Africa’s distribution model that relies heavily on a collaborative framework between the health and basic education ministries. The ‘Integrated School Health Program’ utilizes dedicated school nurses to administer the HPV vaccine and engages with both parents and local school governing bodies. Nothemba Simelela, adviser to the South African Minister of Health, highlights the importance of a community-driven approach. Securing parental consent is a fundamental pillar of the rollout, with officials strategically bundling permission slips with annual school registration forms to maximize compliance. “Some of the nurses have given us feedback that they [the girls] just join the queue because they don’t want to be left behind by their peers, and it’s quite difficult to refuse to give such young girls the vaccination,” stated Nothemba (Nono) Simelela, adviser to the South African Minister of Health. Innovating HIV medication to tackle overlapping threats WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus commended India’s leadership in the global fight against cervical cancer. The underlying urgency to protect these vulnerable populations is driven by stark epidemiological realities regarding overlapping threats. Women living with HIV are six times more likely to develop cervical cancer compared to women without HIV, according to the WHO. Recognizing that overcoming this deadly coinfection crisis requires a two-front defence, South Africa is confronting its staggering HIV burden with groundbreaking pharmaceutical developments. Just today, the state announced its intention to begin locally manufacturing Lenacapavir, a highly preventative medication. This pharmaceutical is technically not a vaccine, but it operates as a long-acting antiretroviral injection administered every six months to high-risk individuals. In recent clinical trials, the preventative treatment has been shown to block almost all cases of HIV transmission among vulnerable demographics, Dr Tedros explained. Global health authorities have fast-tracked the drug’s approval process to ensure equitable international distribution as quickly as possible. “It’s the first time WHO has developed pre-qualification and guidelines in parallel not in sequence to speed up equitable access to innovative new tools,” announced the WHO Director-General. South Africa previously became the first nation in Africa to officially approve the preventative medication back in October last year. The planned massive rollout of this drug represents a fundamental shift in how the continent approaches its long-standing battle against the devastating HIV epidemic. Image Credits: Felix Sassmannshausen, Pravin via Canva. African Universities Launch Climate-Health Hubs Amidst Escalating Global Crisis 05/03/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen Intensified climate-health risks such as prolonged droughts are placing a strain on public health systems in Africa. Two regional research hubs that aim to develop climate adaptation strategies that reduce health impacts are to be established in Ghana and South Africa under the terms of a new £40 million climate-health initiative led by African universities and the Wellcome Trust, announced on Thursday. Along with the two hubs in South Africa and Ghana, an additional £20 million has been earmarked for a third hub in East Africa, with the site yet to be determined. The aim is to develop provide policymakers on the continent with tailor-made scientific data and strategies for shielding vulnerable populations from the intensifying health threats of extreme heat, flooding, air pollution and worsening nutrition – which already kill millions of people every year. “Africa is on the frontline of climate change, with women and marginalized communities already suffering the worst health impacts,” stressed Charlotte Watts, Executive Director of Solutions at the Wellcome Trust, in Thursday’s statement. The hubs will link scientists across diverse disciplines along with policymakers, and community partners, to generate effective strategies protecting human health. The South African hub, anchored at the University of the Witwatersrand, will address extreme heat in South Africa and Zimbabwe, alongside issues like devastating flooding in Malawi. The goal is to overcome the knowledge and financial barriers constraining essential care for affected communities, according to consortium lead Matthew Chersich, Professor at the Wits Planetary Health Research Division. Meanwhile, the Western Africa consortium anchored at Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, will tackle environmental hazards that are characteristic of that region, such as intense dust storms and prolonged droughts along with heat waves. Intensifying climate risks are straining fragile public health systems and disrupting livelihoods across the region, warned the Western Africa lead Philip Antwi-Agyei, Professor of Climate Change and Sustainability Science. Adelheid Onyango (WHO) emphasizes the need for rigorous data to support health leaders making vital decisions. Currently, uncoordinated policies pose a massive challenge to protecting vulnerable populations in nations like Ghana and Senegal, Antwi-Agyei argued. “Health leaders across Africa make vital decisions with limited resources, so having access to rigorous, context-relevant evidence is essential,” added Adelheid Onyango, Director of the Health Systems and Services Cluster at the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa. A continent bearing a disproportionate climate-health burden Lancet Countdown 2025: 12 of 20 climate-health indicators are now at catastrophic levels, including a sharp rise in heat-related deaths globally. This African initiative arrives against a grim global backdrop, as the 2025 Lancet Countdown report recently revealed that 12 out of 20 key climate-health indicators have hit catastrophic records. Extreme heat exposure alone claimed an estimated 546,000 lives annually over the last decade. Some 2.5 million people are estimated to die every year from air pollution generated by fossil fuel use. While Africa contributes minimally to global emissions, it bears the greatest burden of climate change. Compounding these health vulnerabilities is a massive infrastructure deficit, with roughly 600 million Africans still lacking basic access to electricity. Consequently, about half of the health centres in sub-Saharan Africa suffer from unreliable power, severely disrupting emergency care and vaccine refrigeration capabilities. Furthermore, the world’s poorest countries are now spending more on debt service than on healthcare, education, and infrastructure combined. This ongoing debt trap leaves health systems chronically underfunded and unable to cope with rising climate-health disease burdens. African member states fought hard to support the full adoption of a new WHO action plan on climate change and health, approved by the World Health Assembly in May 2025 The initiative actively encourages countries to transition their critical health facilities toward reliable, renewable energy sources to boost overall climate-health resilience. Building a climate-health fortress of evidence Modi Mwatsama, Wellcome. Ensuring African communities possess the necessary expertise to navigate the complex challenges of climate change is a pillar of Wellcome’s climate and health strategy. The new consortiums hold massive potential to foster essential innovation, Modi Mwatsama, Head of Capacity and Field Development at Wellcome stated. Looking ahead, the hubs also will pioneer health-centred approaches to reducing carbon emissions – building more stakeholder support for climate mitigation and the carbon transition. And they will also prioritize delivering specialized care solutions for the most at-risk demographic groups, including pregnant women, children, and older individuals. Advocates view the integration of scientific rigour and local policymaking as a crucial step toward achieving more robust climate-health policies and broader climate justice for the global South. The funding will help build a stronger “fortress of evidence” that the world urgently requires right now, said Philip Kilonzo, of the PanAfrican Climate Justice Alliance. Image Credits: piyaset/Getty Images via Canva, WHO, Felix Sassmannshausen, Wellcome Trust. Urgent Need to Expand Access to GLP-1 Medicine to Reduce Obesity 04/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan Most people with obesity now live in low and middle-income countries. WORLD OBESITY DAY – Most people living with obesity are now in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), according to the World Obesity Federation (WOF) – yet people living in these countries are least likely to have access to the Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 (GLP-1) medicine that is transforming treatment outcomes in wealthier countries. Around one billion people are currently living with obesity, and four billion people – almost half the world’s population – are projected to be overweight or obese by 2035. Obesity in children has risen from 4% in 1975 to 20% by 2025. People with obesity are at greater risk of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), particularly heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure and diabetes. The GLP-1 drugs are transforming obesity treatment after years of behaviour-based policy interventions have failed to stop the rise of obesity. In clinical trials of newer GLP-1 drugs such as semaglutide (Wegovy), obese patients without diabetes lose 15%–25% of their body weight over 12 to 18 months. The World Health Organization (WHO) issued its first guidelines for their use to address obesity last December. (Several have already been approved as essential drugs to treat type 2 diabetes). Around 10 million people in the US were estimated to be on GLP-1 drugs in 2025, and this is projected to rise to 25 million by 2030. Australians, New Zealanders and Europeans are also embracing the drugs. Scarce and expensive But these medicines are scarce in LMICs despite the growing need. Between 2010 and 2022, obesity more than doubled across all LMICs and tripled in low-income countries, according to the WOF. In South Africa, for example, the prevalence of obesity in adults rose by 38% between 1998 and 2017, affecting 28% of the adult population, with women having double the rate of men. But GLP-1 drugs are “currently prohibitively expensive, prone to massive repeated supply shortages, and unavailable from state clinics and most medical aids”, according to South African clinicians Dr Francois Venter and Dr Nomathemba Chandiwana. The monthly cost of the medication varies from around $100 to $300, way out of the reach of the vast majority of South Africans. Only four of the 20 countries most impacted or projected to be most impacted by rising obesity rates cover obesity medicine in their public health systems, according to the Economist Impact’s Global Obesity Response Index. Only the UK covers all four forms of evidence-based obesity care – nutrition counselling, intensive behavioural therapy, medications, and metabolic and bariatric surgery –through public insurance. Canada, China, Mexico, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa offer no national-level coverage of any of these interventions. “Without deep price reductions and scalable care systems, obesity treatment will remain out of reach, and health systems will continue to absorb the far higher costs of untreated disease,” according to the Medicines Patent Pool this week. However, access to GLP-1 medicine should improve as the key compound patents for semaglutide (Wegovy) expire within the next few months, with generic medicine poised to enter the market. Curbing ultra-processed food Unhealthy food habits drive obesity While medicine is key to reducing obesity, so too are policy measures to rein in the industries that promote ultra-processed food that drives the condition. Key interventions are high taxes on ultra-processed food and sugary drinks; front-of-package warning labels on food high in sugar, salt and fat; and restrictions on marketing these products to children. However, of the 20 most affected countries, only one – Mexico – taxes both unhealthy foods and drinks, according to the Global Obesity Response Index. Only three – Brazil, Canada, and Mexico – require front-of-package nutrition labelling. Image Credits: Flip. First Vaccines in Three Years Reach Besieged Sudanese State 03/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan A UNICEF-supported mobile clinic provides healthcare to people displaced by violence in Darfur, Sudan. The first vaccines to reach Sudan’s South Kordofan state in nearly three years were delivered this week, according to Save the Children. South Kordofan has not received any vaccines since July 2023 due to a siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF),which has blocked medical and humanitarian supplies. “This left thousands of children without protection from preventable disease at a time when malnutrition and displacement were putting them at heightened risk,” said Save the Children. The organisation delivered two truckloads containing 18 metric tons of routine vaccines to Kadugli town in the south-central state over the past few days. The shipment includes the tuberculosis BCG vaccine, oral polio vaccine (OPV) and pentavalent vaccine (against diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B, whooping cough and Hib), as well as vaccines for rotavirus, pneumococcal, measles, meningococcal A, inactivated and Yellow Fever. The vaccines, funded by Gavi, will support immunisation in five localities, including Kadugli where famine was confirmed in September 2025. Families in Al Reif Alshargi, Aldalang, Habila and Al Goos will also benefit, with more than 24,500 children set to receive routine vaccinations this year. In addition, nearly 6,000 women will receive the tetanus vaccine. “Vaccines are one of the simplest and most effective tools we have to prevent child deaths,” said Dr Bashir Kamal Eldin, Save the Children’s health and nutrition director in Sudan. “This vaccine delivery is a breakthrough for thousands of children and mothers who have endured months without reliable access to food and basic health services, conditions that have put their lives at serious risk.” However, Eldin warned that the situation remains extremely fragile: “Without sustained peace and guaranteed humanitarian access, these gains could quickly be reversed.” ‘Humanitarian catastrophe’ The World Health Organization (WHO) has described the situation in Sudan as a “humanitarian catastrophe of staggering dimensions” in its latest report on the conflict. The WHO estimates that 33,7 million people require assistance. Some 11.5 million people have been forcibly displaced, with over 4.2 million fleeing into neighbouring countries. Chad recently closed its border with Sudan as it cannot cope with the influx of refugees. “More than 21.2 million people are experiencing acute food insecurity,” said the WHO, with violence disrupting food and aid supply chains and agricultural production. Some areas, including El Fasher (North Darfur) and Kadugli (South Kordofan), are facing famine, categorised as “Integrated Phase Classification Phase 5 (IPC Phase 5)”, when over 20% of households face an extreme lack of food and over 30% of children face acute malnutrition. “The latest nutrition survey in Um Baru (North Darfur) recorded a Global Acute Malnutrition rate of 53%, of which 35% were classified as Severe Acute Malnutrition. Coupled with high rates of malnutrition, an overstretched health system and low immunisation coverage, this increases the risk of disease outbreaks and their catastrophic impacts,” said the WHO. “Multiple disease outbreaks are occurring simultaneously, including cholera, dengue, malaria, measles, hepatitis E, and diphtheria. “Over 40 000 injuries have been reported amid the ongoing conflict. Civilians continue to be killed, injured and displaced in ongoing attacks in the Darfur and Kordofan regions. Sexual violence remains pervasive.” Between 15 April 2023 and 31 December 2025, the WHO has formally validated 201 attacks on health care, 1,858 deaths and 490 injuries. “Many health facilities have been destroyed, looted, or are functioning with severe shortages of staff, medicines, vaccines, equipment, and supplies,” the WHO concludes. Image Credits: Mohammed Jamal / UNICEF. Ghana and Senegal Consider Harsher Measures Against LGBTQ People 03/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan Senegal’s President Ousmane Sonko. The Parliaments of both Ghana and Senegal are considering harsher penalties for same-sex relationships. Last month, Ghana’s Parliament had its first reading of an anti-LGBTQ Bill, which is now being considered by its Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. Meanwhile, Senegal’s Cabinet approved a Bill for its Parliament last month that will double the maximum penalty for same sex relationships – up to 10 years in prison. Ghana passed an anti-LGBTQ bill in 2024, but it was not signed into law by the country’s then-president, Nana Akufo-Addo. The current president, John Mahama, was elected in 2024 and has stated his readiness to pass anti-LGBTQ laws. Ghana’s Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill is similar to the one passed in 2024, and contains some of the most wide-ranging legal restrictions on human sexuality. First off, the Bill aims to criminalise LGBTTQAP+ people. This applies to “a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, ally, pansexual or a person of any other sexual orientation that is contrary to the sociocultural relationship between a male and a female”. Any sexual activities by LGBTTQAP+ people will get a prison sentence of between two months and three years. Meanwhile, “gross indecency” – defined as a “public show of romantic relations” or “cross-dressing” can get six to 12 months in prison. LGBTTQAP+ organisations are also banned. Ghanaians have a duty to report transgressions. The Bill also requires “parents, teachers, religious bodies, media and state institutions” to “promote and protect… human sexual rights and family values” and ensure they are “preserved and integrated into the fabric of national life.” Senegal’s Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, who also came to power in 2024, told his Parliament that the Bill will punish “acts against nature” with prison sentences from five to 10 years. US Speeds up Signing of Bilateral Health Agreements, DRC Lawyers Challenge Minerals Deal 02/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan DRC Health Minister Dr Roger Kamba, US Charge D’Affaires in DRC, Ian McCary, DRC Prime Minister Judith Tuluka Suminwa and Finance Minister Doudou Fwamba, at the signing of the health MOU last week. The United States has moved at speed to secure several new bilateral health Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) in the past week, including, for the first time, four in Latin America – with the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala and Panama. To date (2 March), the US has signed 24 bilateral health MOUs in terms of the Trump administration’s America First Global Health Strategy. Announcing its agreement with Panama, the first MOU within Latin America, the US State Department described it as “strengthening Western hemisphere health security”, which it added is “a priority”. The four Latin American agreements involve smaller grants and are almost wholly focused on disease surveillance. The other 20 bilateral agreements are all with African countries – mostly previous recipients of health grants via the now disbanded US Agency for International Development (USAID) and decimated US President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Several of these countries are facing dire shortages of medicines for HIV, tuberculosis, and maternal and child health as a result of the US withdrawal of funds. The five-year MOUs are aimed at rapidly transferring financial responsibility for these key health services to countries themselves – as some, such as Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – derived over half their HIV budgets from donors, particularly the US. In the DRC, for example, at least half the antiretroviral medication it used was covered by the US. High parting price However, the parting price for these transitional MOUs includes extensive investment in infectious disease surveillance networks. The aim is to supply the US with pathogen information within a week of any outbreak to not only “keep America safe” but to give US firms exclusive access to pathogen information, which will enable them to make vaccines, medicines and diagnostics to combat these. The US-DRC MOU, signed on 26 February, focuses extensively on “strengthening the DRC’s capacity to detect and contain infectious disease outbreaks before they spread internationally”, according to a US State Department statement. The DRC has experienced recent Ebola outbreaks and, for the past year, the biggest mpox outbreak in the world. According to the MOU, the US commits to investing up to $900 million over five years and the DRC commits to increasing its health expenditure by $300 million. The bulk of the money will go into “a national integrated surveillance and outbreak response system, including a high-quality laboratory network capable of detecting and investigating infectious disease outbreaks within seven days”. “Under this system, relevant authorities, including the United States and other partners, will coordinate epidemic preparedness and rapid response measures to contain outbreaks and prevent their spread to neighboring areas,” according to the statement. The MOU also aims to modernise data and disease surveillance systems with “enhanced electronic medical records and interoperable platforms”, professionalise community health workers and “expand integrated delivery of essential health services for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, polio, and maternal and child health”. First, the minerals… Guinea and the US signed a minerals MOU before the health MOU. The US held off signing an MOU with the DRC in terms of its “America First Global Health Strategy” on 5 December, when it signed deals with Rwanda and Kenya on the sidelines of the signing of a peace accord between Rwanda and the DRC. Instead, the US and the DRC signed a “strategic partnership agreement” to “promote secure, reliable, and mutually beneficial critical mineral flows for commercial and defense purposes”. The DRC is one of the world’s most important sources of rare earth minerals, but China has dominated the purchasing and processing of its minerals. In the past two months, the DRC has opened its rare minerals supply to the US. In late January, the DRC sent the US a shortlist of state-owned assets involving manganese, copper, cobalt, gold and lithium, for US investors to consider as part of a minerals partnership, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, the US MOU with Guinea, signed on 27 February, was also preceded by a minerals MOU, signed with the US on 5 February, giving the US access to “critical minerals”. The health MOU prioritises strengthening the country’s “laboratory networks with biosafety and biosecurity management aligned with international standards by 2027”. Legal backlash in DRC But not all countries want to exchange their minerals and other assets for aid. A group of lawyers in the DRC are challenging the minerals MOU in their Constitutional Court, arguing that it violates the country’s Constitution in various ways, including undermining national sovereignty over natural resources. “By filing this case with the Constitutional Court, we are assuming our responsibility as Congolese citizens to protect the sovereignty of our country and safeguard our patrimony for future generations,” said attorney Jean-Marie Kalonji, one of the plaintiffs. The case has yet to be heard. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe recently backed out of talks with the US as it was unhappy with what the US required from it in terms of outbreaks. “Zimbabwe was being asked to share its biological resources and data over an extended period, with no corresponding guarantee of access to any medical innovations—such as vaccines, diagnostics, or treatments—that might result from that shared data,” explained Nick Mangwana, Secretary for Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services. “In essence, our nation would provide the raw materials for scientific discovery without any assurance that the end products would be accessible to our people should a future health crisis emerge. The United States, meanwhile, was not offering reciprocal sharing of its own epidemiological data with our health authorities.” Kenya’s MOU with the US, the first of the series, has been halted by the country’s High Court as it faces two separate court challenges for giving the US access to patient data and pathogen information. The government of Zambia acknowledged last week that it is unhappy with part of a proposed health aid deal with the United States that “does not align with the country’s interests” and has requested “revisions” to the MOU. The Zambia-US bilateral health deal was due to be signed last December, but it faltered after the US linked the billion-dollar deal to access to Zambian minerals, particularly copper and cobalt. Just four days before the MOU was due to be signed, the US announced that the two countries had committed to a plan to unlock “a substantial grant package of US support in exchange for collaboration in the mining sector and clear business sector reforms that will drive economic growth and commercial investment that benefit both the United States and Zambia”. ‘Extractive’ policy Sophie Harman, professor of international politics at Queen Mary University of London, argues in last week’s BMJ that “extraction is the core principle of US President Donald Trump’s America First global health policy”. “The current US administration does not aim to improve health worldwide, instead it intends to make US companies richer and facilitate ‘leveraging US global health leadership to compete with China’,” writes Harman. “Entering a deal with the US government is a potential lose-lose for states. These countries risk losing resources and opportunities for wealth creation in their own countries, threatening alliances with China for relatively small advances in health, and creating political turmoil in domestic courts.” Europe is Failing to Curb Tobacco Use – Especially in Women 28/02/2026 Kerry Cullinan Smoking prevalence is higher amongst European women than anywhere else in the world. Europe is failing to curb tobacco use – particularly in women and girls – and will have the world’s highest prevalence by 2030, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) European region revealed this week. Of the region’s 53 states, tobacco use is highest in Serbia, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Montenegro – all exceeding 30% prevalence in people over the age of 14. The global average for tobacco use in people aged 15 and over is 19.5%, while in the WHO European Region it is 24.1%. The rate of female smokers is the highest in the world at 17.3% – or one in five women. This is almost double the prevalence of the next highest region, 9.1% in the Americas. Europe is the only WHO region not expected to meet the global target of a 30% reduction in tobacco use among women by 2025. It is currently projected to achieve only a 12% reduction between 2010 and 2025. “The 62 million female smokers in the European Region represent over 40% of the 143 million female smokers in the world,” according to the WHO, which released 10 new factsheets on tobacco consumption this week. “European girls aged 13 to 15 now have the highest tobacco use rates among their age group anywhere in the world,” continued Kluge. “That is not an accident, it’s the result of deliberate industry strategy targeting young people with flavoured products and sophisticated social media marketing. “Countries like Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands are proving it is possible to push back – by regulating novel products, banning flavours and restricting advertising. Every country in this region should be doing the same, to protect future generations.” Slow decreases While Europe’s tobacco consumption is decreasing, it is happening fairly slowly. In 2000, 47,5% of European men used tobacco, and by 2025 this was 30,3%. In women, tobacco use decreased from 22,3% in 2000 to 17,3% in 2025. “Tobacco use already causes over 1.1 million deaths from noncommunicable diseases in the European Region each year – and without accelerated action, we will stay the worst-performing region in the world by 2030,” said Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe. “We have a responsibility to change course now: to shield young people from nicotine addiction, prevent industry interference in health policy, and enforce the regulations that will prevent a lifetime of avoidable harm.” Uneven use of taxes Tax increases are being applied in some European countries – and in 28 countries, taxes represented more than 75% of the retail price of the most popular brand of cigarettes in 2024 – an increase from 16 countries in 2008. Twelve countries have increased prices since 2014, including Belgium, Czechia, Finland, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, North Macedonia, Slovakia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Uzbekistan. But cigarettes have become more affordable in 19 countries – up from just nine in 2022 – which may lead to higher smoking initiation, the WHO warned. Cigarettes are cheapest in Belarus, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan, and most expensive in Turkmenistan, Ireland, the UK and France. Uneven regulation Regulating e-cigarettes is uneven across the region. The region has the second-highest e-cigarette use prevalence in the world, with an estimated 31.4 million users, and regulation of e-cigarettes is fragmented. “Decades of progress are at risk unless policies keep pace with a rapidly evolving nicotine landscape,” said Kristina Mauer-Stender, Regional Adviser for Tobacco Control at WHO/Europe. “Applying the same strong tobacco control tools to new and emerging products is essential if we want to protect young people and sustain public health gains.” The fact sheets show that, while most countries in the region have strong tobacco monitoring systems and require large health warnings on packaging, implementation is uneven across other measures. Only 18 countries have comprehensive smoke-free laws covering all public spaces. Just 12 provide national quit lines and cover the cost of cessation services. Comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising and promotion exist in only 13 countries. Image Credits: Zaya Odeesho/ Unsplash, pixabay. WHO Updates Flu Vaccine in Response to Rapid Spread of New Variant 27/02/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen Dr Maria Van Kerkhove (2nd left) , Dr Wenqing Zhang, Dr Richard Webby and Prof Nicola Lewis present the WHO recommendation for the seasonal flu vaccine composition. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced its updated recommendations for the 2026-2027 Northern Hemisphere seasonal flu vaccine on Friday, a critical adjustment driven by the rapid global dominance of a new A(H3N2) variant known as subclade K. Following four days of intense consultation by the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS), experts finalized the flu vaccine composition to ensure it matches circulating threats. While announcing these seasonal updates at a press conference on Friday, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s Director ad interim for Epidemic and Pandemic Management, pointed to the broader danger of respiratory viruses, warning that “the threat of an influenza pandemic is real and everpresent”. She emphasized the critical need for flu vaccination to protect against severe disease and death. There are around a billion cases of seasonal influenza annually, including three to five million cases of severe illness. It causes an estimated 290,000 to 650,000 respiratory deaths annually, according to the WHO. Updated flu vaccine in response to rapid rise of new variant ‘subclade K’ A series of frequency charts illustrate the global dominance of the A(H3N2) subclade K variant. Since its sudden emergence in July and August of 2025, subclade K (scientifically classified as J.2.4.1) has rapidly spread globally, shifting the baseline of flu activity and replacing earlier dominant strains. This variant now accounts for the majority of influenza viruses reported across multiple regions. To react to this development, WHO issued two recommendations: Egg-based flu vaccines for the upcoming season include an A/Missouri/11/2025 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus, an A/Darwin/1454/2025 (H3N2)-like virus, and a B/Tokyo/EIS13-175/2025 (B/Victoria lineage)-like virus. Cell-based flu vaccines will similarly target the Missouri and Darwin strains, alongside a B/Pennsylvania/14/2025-like virus. Notably, the B/Yamagata lineage remains excluded from the formula, as no cases of this lineage have been documented since March 2020. Shifting flu seasons across hemispheres Prof Nicola Lewis highlighted prolonged influenza activity in the Southern Hemisphere (right). The unchecked spread of subclade K has significantly altered the traditional flu calendar. According to Professor Nicola Lewis, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre at the Francis Crick Institute in London, the Southern Hemisphere experienced complex disease dynamics. While the season began with H1 dominance, the sudden arrival of H3 subclade K extended the flu’s impact considerably in countries like Australia, she explained in a briefing on Friday. New Flu Strain Sweeping Europe Says WHO; but Vaccines Remain Effective, ECDC Finds Consequently, the virus’s spread caused the Northern Hemisphere to experience an unusually early start to its own influenza season, with countries such as the United Kingdom and Japan recording surges weeks ahead of historical averages. Zoonotic threats and pandemic preparedness Dr Richard Webby noted that while zoonotic threats primarily impact animal populations, the WHO remains on high alert for potential human infections. Beyond seasonal strains, health authorities remain on high alert regarding the dangers of avian and swine influenza. Globally, A(H5) viruses maintain a robust presence in bird populations across almost all regions except Oceania. Notably, spillover events into humans have recently included atypical subtypes like A(H5N2) in Mexico and A(H5N5) in the United States, causing disease ranging from moderate to fatal. Since September 2025, 25 human infections involving zoonotic influenza have been reported across six countries, primarily linked to direct animal exposure without evidence of human-to-human transmission. Fourteen of these cases involved H9N2 infections detected in China, noted Dr Richard Webby, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, USA. In response to slight evolutionary changes in these animal viruses, WHO is proactively recommending the development of an updated Candidate Vaccine Virus (CVV) for avian influenza A(H9N2) to ensure global pandemic preparedness is not caught off guard. Prioritizing vaccination and combatting misinformation Van Kerkhove highlighted that safe and effective vaccines remain the primary defense. With a highly transmissible strain circulating, experts reiterate that safe and effective flu vaccines remain the primary defense, particularly for vulnerable populations and healthcare workers. However, WHO is not ignoring public hesitancy. Van Kerkhove emphasized that global health leaders must actively listen to communities and take their concerns seriously. “We are listening to people. There are legitimate questions that need to be answered,” she affirmed, noting that WHO is collaborating with community and faith-based leaders to combat willful misinformation campaigns and empower individuals to make informed health decisions. Image Credits: Felix Sassmannshausen. Drone Busts Delhi’s Spring Clean Air Myth 27/02/2026 Chetan Bhattacharji Drone footage dispels the myth the Delhi’s air pollution improves in spring. NEW DELHI – For years, residents of the Indian capital have looked to the skies in March with a sense of relief, believing that the notorious winter pollution had finally retreated. However, a drone armed with an air quality monitor has shattered this perception, revealing a massive blanket of toxic air hovering just above the city’s skyline. This vertical pollution acts like a pollution lid over the capital. It also contains unexpectedly high concentrations of dangerous particles that ground-level monitors often fail to capture. Dark surprise in the spring sky The study indicates the vast scale of Delhi’s pollution. One of the authors, Prof Sagnik Dey of theIndian Institute of Technology (ITT) Delhi, estimates this to be roughly 240,000 kgs, equivalent to some 1,200 oil drums. “Taking Delhi, 30 km by 40 km, and considering PM2.5 up to 1 km, we are talking 1200 km3 volume of air,” Dey told Health Policy Watch. “When PM2.5 is 200 ug/m3 on a day, we are talking about 2,40,000 kg of particles to be cleaned out.” Another surprise is that this smog blanket occurred in mid-March when climatic conditions, including and temperature, favour the dispersal of pollution, unlike in winter. The study was conducted by a team at IIT Delhi, from its South Delhi campus between 11-23 March, 2021. The research, published in Nature this month, shows that while the air at street level might seem manageable, the atmosphere 100 metres above the ground was 60% more toxic. The new findings raise questions about how much of Delhi’s air crisis is driven by local sources and why current emergency measures are failing to clear the sky. There is a lot of complex chemistry at work, churning out the lethal cocktail of pollutants. The ingredients and level of pollution change depending on whether it is morning, noon, evening or night. The authors – numbering 20 from institutions in nine countries ranging from the UK to China – say that the study provides enough impetus to study the pollution above the city more deeply, using drones, to improve models and policy action to reduce air pollution. Toxic mornings The most dangerous window for residents is between 5am and 8am, when a “suppressed planetary boundary layer” acts like a physical ceiling below 200 metres altitude, trapping pollutants near the surface thanks to factors like cooler air, low/no wind, and humidity levels. The planetary boundary layer (PBL) can be as low as 50m and as high as a couple of thousand, depending on the temperature, time of day or year, and other factors. Usually, the higher the PBL, the lower the concentration of pollutants at ground level, which is why in summer the level of particulate matter tends to be lower in hot places like Delhi. On one day, the study found PM2.5 concentrations reached a staggering 160 µg/m³ (micrograms/cubic metre) at an altitude of 100m, typically the height of a 30-storey residential building. Ground monitors recorded only 100 µg/m³; WHO’s daily safe limit is 15 µg/m³. The altitude of the toxic haze shows the strength of local emissions and regional transport, Dey says. “This calls for prioritising emission reduction as the main mitigation strategy through systemic long-term measures rather than short-term emergency measures trying to filter this large volume of toxic air,” he added. The Delhi government has resorted to using hundreds of water sprinklers on trucks and buildings to subdue dust. In the past, it built ‘smog towers’, essentially outdoor air purifiers, before conceding these are ineffective. As the sun rises and the ground warms, this “lid” expands, allowing the toxic air to disperse into higher altitudes. By noon and into the early evening, the air becomes significantly clearer, with temperatures reaching 30-35°C and humidity dropping to 40-50%. What causes Delhi’s pollution peaks? Delhi air pollution during peak pollution days in mid-November. The report breaks down a list of pollutants, secondary pollutants formed as a result of primary pollutants and other factors like temperature and chemical reactions. The chemicals produced include chloride, black carbon or soot, sulphur dioxide to some extent from coal combustion, nitrogen dioxide and ozone, especially during traffic rush hour. These are emitted by burning biomass, solid fuels, waste, and from industries. An increase in the levels of chloride and black carbon are linked to the burning of biomass and solid fuel, which could be in waste as well. Tackling waste burning has often been identified by experts as a top priority to reduce the region’s air pollution. Exposure to these pollutants, particularly fine particulate matter like black carbon, is linked to severe respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, including asthma, lung cancer, and strokes. Additionally, nitrogen dioxide and ground-level ozone can significantly reduce lung function and trigger chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations. Traffic is a prime suspect A significant cause for this hovering haze is the city’s roads. The report highlights the staggering impact of vehicular pollution, noting that traffic contributes 40-50% of PM2.5 during peak hours. In areas near major traffic corridors, the drones detected high levels of “equivalent black carbon,” a particularly soot-heavy component of exhaust. This traffic-led pollution does not simply blow away. Instead, emissions from the millions of vehicles on Delhi’s roads build up overnight, trapped by the shallow boundary layer. This nocturnal build-up is further complicated by other local sources, including waste burning, industrial activities, and residential cooking. The study found that chloride, often linked to the burning of plastic and electronic waste, spiked in the early hours of the morning, acting as a chemical trigger that causes particles to grow and thicken the haze. Call for more drones To capture this data, researchers utilised a custom-designed drone platform built by an Indian start-up, BotLab Dynamics. The drone, weighing roughly 7.5 kg, was equipped with a modified low-cost sensor (LCS). The study involved 40 separate drone flights near heavy traffic corridors. However, back in March 2021, time was tight due to Covid restrictions. Now, the authors have called for more drone-based surveillance, at higher altitudes, and with better equipment. In the right conditions, tons of these pollutants can descend and threaten public health. Image Credits: Gustaf von Zeipel/ Unsplash, Chetan Bhattacharji. Posts navigation Older postsNewer posts This site uses cookies to help give you the best experience on our website. Cookies enable us to collect information that helps us personalise your experience and improve the functionality and performance of our site. By continuing to read our website, we assume you agree to this, otherwise you can adjust your browser settings. Please read our cookie and Privacy Policy. Our Cookies and Privacy Policy Loading Comments... You must be logged in to post a comment.
African Universities Launch Climate-Health Hubs Amidst Escalating Global Crisis 05/03/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen Intensified climate-health risks such as prolonged droughts are placing a strain on public health systems in Africa. Two regional research hubs that aim to develop climate adaptation strategies that reduce health impacts are to be established in Ghana and South Africa under the terms of a new £40 million climate-health initiative led by African universities and the Wellcome Trust, announced on Thursday. Along with the two hubs in South Africa and Ghana, an additional £20 million has been earmarked for a third hub in East Africa, with the site yet to be determined. The aim is to develop provide policymakers on the continent with tailor-made scientific data and strategies for shielding vulnerable populations from the intensifying health threats of extreme heat, flooding, air pollution and worsening nutrition – which already kill millions of people every year. “Africa is on the frontline of climate change, with women and marginalized communities already suffering the worst health impacts,” stressed Charlotte Watts, Executive Director of Solutions at the Wellcome Trust, in Thursday’s statement. The hubs will link scientists across diverse disciplines along with policymakers, and community partners, to generate effective strategies protecting human health. The South African hub, anchored at the University of the Witwatersrand, will address extreme heat in South Africa and Zimbabwe, alongside issues like devastating flooding in Malawi. The goal is to overcome the knowledge and financial barriers constraining essential care for affected communities, according to consortium lead Matthew Chersich, Professor at the Wits Planetary Health Research Division. Meanwhile, the Western Africa consortium anchored at Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, will tackle environmental hazards that are characteristic of that region, such as intense dust storms and prolonged droughts along with heat waves. Intensifying climate risks are straining fragile public health systems and disrupting livelihoods across the region, warned the Western Africa lead Philip Antwi-Agyei, Professor of Climate Change and Sustainability Science. Adelheid Onyango (WHO) emphasizes the need for rigorous data to support health leaders making vital decisions. Currently, uncoordinated policies pose a massive challenge to protecting vulnerable populations in nations like Ghana and Senegal, Antwi-Agyei argued. “Health leaders across Africa make vital decisions with limited resources, so having access to rigorous, context-relevant evidence is essential,” added Adelheid Onyango, Director of the Health Systems and Services Cluster at the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa. A continent bearing a disproportionate climate-health burden Lancet Countdown 2025: 12 of 20 climate-health indicators are now at catastrophic levels, including a sharp rise in heat-related deaths globally. This African initiative arrives against a grim global backdrop, as the 2025 Lancet Countdown report recently revealed that 12 out of 20 key climate-health indicators have hit catastrophic records. Extreme heat exposure alone claimed an estimated 546,000 lives annually over the last decade. Some 2.5 million people are estimated to die every year from air pollution generated by fossil fuel use. While Africa contributes minimally to global emissions, it bears the greatest burden of climate change. Compounding these health vulnerabilities is a massive infrastructure deficit, with roughly 600 million Africans still lacking basic access to electricity. Consequently, about half of the health centres in sub-Saharan Africa suffer from unreliable power, severely disrupting emergency care and vaccine refrigeration capabilities. Furthermore, the world’s poorest countries are now spending more on debt service than on healthcare, education, and infrastructure combined. This ongoing debt trap leaves health systems chronically underfunded and unable to cope with rising climate-health disease burdens. African member states fought hard to support the full adoption of a new WHO action plan on climate change and health, approved by the World Health Assembly in May 2025 The initiative actively encourages countries to transition their critical health facilities toward reliable, renewable energy sources to boost overall climate-health resilience. Building a climate-health fortress of evidence Modi Mwatsama, Wellcome. Ensuring African communities possess the necessary expertise to navigate the complex challenges of climate change is a pillar of Wellcome’s climate and health strategy. The new consortiums hold massive potential to foster essential innovation, Modi Mwatsama, Head of Capacity and Field Development at Wellcome stated. Looking ahead, the hubs also will pioneer health-centred approaches to reducing carbon emissions – building more stakeholder support for climate mitigation and the carbon transition. And they will also prioritize delivering specialized care solutions for the most at-risk demographic groups, including pregnant women, children, and older individuals. Advocates view the integration of scientific rigour and local policymaking as a crucial step toward achieving more robust climate-health policies and broader climate justice for the global South. The funding will help build a stronger “fortress of evidence” that the world urgently requires right now, said Philip Kilonzo, of the PanAfrican Climate Justice Alliance. Image Credits: piyaset/Getty Images via Canva, WHO, Felix Sassmannshausen, Wellcome Trust. Urgent Need to Expand Access to GLP-1 Medicine to Reduce Obesity 04/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan Most people with obesity now live in low and middle-income countries. WORLD OBESITY DAY – Most people living with obesity are now in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), according to the World Obesity Federation (WOF) – yet people living in these countries are least likely to have access to the Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 (GLP-1) medicine that is transforming treatment outcomes in wealthier countries. Around one billion people are currently living with obesity, and four billion people – almost half the world’s population – are projected to be overweight or obese by 2035. Obesity in children has risen from 4% in 1975 to 20% by 2025. People with obesity are at greater risk of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), particularly heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure and diabetes. The GLP-1 drugs are transforming obesity treatment after years of behaviour-based policy interventions have failed to stop the rise of obesity. In clinical trials of newer GLP-1 drugs such as semaglutide (Wegovy), obese patients without diabetes lose 15%–25% of their body weight over 12 to 18 months. The World Health Organization (WHO) issued its first guidelines for their use to address obesity last December. (Several have already been approved as essential drugs to treat type 2 diabetes). Around 10 million people in the US were estimated to be on GLP-1 drugs in 2025, and this is projected to rise to 25 million by 2030. Australians, New Zealanders and Europeans are also embracing the drugs. Scarce and expensive But these medicines are scarce in LMICs despite the growing need. Between 2010 and 2022, obesity more than doubled across all LMICs and tripled in low-income countries, according to the WOF. In South Africa, for example, the prevalence of obesity in adults rose by 38% between 1998 and 2017, affecting 28% of the adult population, with women having double the rate of men. But GLP-1 drugs are “currently prohibitively expensive, prone to massive repeated supply shortages, and unavailable from state clinics and most medical aids”, according to South African clinicians Dr Francois Venter and Dr Nomathemba Chandiwana. The monthly cost of the medication varies from around $100 to $300, way out of the reach of the vast majority of South Africans. Only four of the 20 countries most impacted or projected to be most impacted by rising obesity rates cover obesity medicine in their public health systems, according to the Economist Impact’s Global Obesity Response Index. Only the UK covers all four forms of evidence-based obesity care – nutrition counselling, intensive behavioural therapy, medications, and metabolic and bariatric surgery –through public insurance. Canada, China, Mexico, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa offer no national-level coverage of any of these interventions. “Without deep price reductions and scalable care systems, obesity treatment will remain out of reach, and health systems will continue to absorb the far higher costs of untreated disease,” according to the Medicines Patent Pool this week. However, access to GLP-1 medicine should improve as the key compound patents for semaglutide (Wegovy) expire within the next few months, with generic medicine poised to enter the market. Curbing ultra-processed food Unhealthy food habits drive obesity While medicine is key to reducing obesity, so too are policy measures to rein in the industries that promote ultra-processed food that drives the condition. Key interventions are high taxes on ultra-processed food and sugary drinks; front-of-package warning labels on food high in sugar, salt and fat; and restrictions on marketing these products to children. However, of the 20 most affected countries, only one – Mexico – taxes both unhealthy foods and drinks, according to the Global Obesity Response Index. Only three – Brazil, Canada, and Mexico – require front-of-package nutrition labelling. Image Credits: Flip. First Vaccines in Three Years Reach Besieged Sudanese State 03/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan A UNICEF-supported mobile clinic provides healthcare to people displaced by violence in Darfur, Sudan. The first vaccines to reach Sudan’s South Kordofan state in nearly three years were delivered this week, according to Save the Children. South Kordofan has not received any vaccines since July 2023 due to a siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF),which has blocked medical and humanitarian supplies. “This left thousands of children without protection from preventable disease at a time when malnutrition and displacement were putting them at heightened risk,” said Save the Children. The organisation delivered two truckloads containing 18 metric tons of routine vaccines to Kadugli town in the south-central state over the past few days. The shipment includes the tuberculosis BCG vaccine, oral polio vaccine (OPV) and pentavalent vaccine (against diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B, whooping cough and Hib), as well as vaccines for rotavirus, pneumococcal, measles, meningococcal A, inactivated and Yellow Fever. The vaccines, funded by Gavi, will support immunisation in five localities, including Kadugli where famine was confirmed in September 2025. Families in Al Reif Alshargi, Aldalang, Habila and Al Goos will also benefit, with more than 24,500 children set to receive routine vaccinations this year. In addition, nearly 6,000 women will receive the tetanus vaccine. “Vaccines are one of the simplest and most effective tools we have to prevent child deaths,” said Dr Bashir Kamal Eldin, Save the Children’s health and nutrition director in Sudan. “This vaccine delivery is a breakthrough for thousands of children and mothers who have endured months without reliable access to food and basic health services, conditions that have put their lives at serious risk.” However, Eldin warned that the situation remains extremely fragile: “Without sustained peace and guaranteed humanitarian access, these gains could quickly be reversed.” ‘Humanitarian catastrophe’ The World Health Organization (WHO) has described the situation in Sudan as a “humanitarian catastrophe of staggering dimensions” in its latest report on the conflict. The WHO estimates that 33,7 million people require assistance. Some 11.5 million people have been forcibly displaced, with over 4.2 million fleeing into neighbouring countries. Chad recently closed its border with Sudan as it cannot cope with the influx of refugees. “More than 21.2 million people are experiencing acute food insecurity,” said the WHO, with violence disrupting food and aid supply chains and agricultural production. Some areas, including El Fasher (North Darfur) and Kadugli (South Kordofan), are facing famine, categorised as “Integrated Phase Classification Phase 5 (IPC Phase 5)”, when over 20% of households face an extreme lack of food and over 30% of children face acute malnutrition. “The latest nutrition survey in Um Baru (North Darfur) recorded a Global Acute Malnutrition rate of 53%, of which 35% were classified as Severe Acute Malnutrition. Coupled with high rates of malnutrition, an overstretched health system and low immunisation coverage, this increases the risk of disease outbreaks and their catastrophic impacts,” said the WHO. “Multiple disease outbreaks are occurring simultaneously, including cholera, dengue, malaria, measles, hepatitis E, and diphtheria. “Over 40 000 injuries have been reported amid the ongoing conflict. Civilians continue to be killed, injured and displaced in ongoing attacks in the Darfur and Kordofan regions. Sexual violence remains pervasive.” Between 15 April 2023 and 31 December 2025, the WHO has formally validated 201 attacks on health care, 1,858 deaths and 490 injuries. “Many health facilities have been destroyed, looted, or are functioning with severe shortages of staff, medicines, vaccines, equipment, and supplies,” the WHO concludes. Image Credits: Mohammed Jamal / UNICEF. Ghana and Senegal Consider Harsher Measures Against LGBTQ People 03/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan Senegal’s President Ousmane Sonko. The Parliaments of both Ghana and Senegal are considering harsher penalties for same-sex relationships. Last month, Ghana’s Parliament had its first reading of an anti-LGBTQ Bill, which is now being considered by its Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. Meanwhile, Senegal’s Cabinet approved a Bill for its Parliament last month that will double the maximum penalty for same sex relationships – up to 10 years in prison. Ghana passed an anti-LGBTQ bill in 2024, but it was not signed into law by the country’s then-president, Nana Akufo-Addo. The current president, John Mahama, was elected in 2024 and has stated his readiness to pass anti-LGBTQ laws. Ghana’s Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill is similar to the one passed in 2024, and contains some of the most wide-ranging legal restrictions on human sexuality. First off, the Bill aims to criminalise LGBTTQAP+ people. This applies to “a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, ally, pansexual or a person of any other sexual orientation that is contrary to the sociocultural relationship between a male and a female”. Any sexual activities by LGBTTQAP+ people will get a prison sentence of between two months and three years. Meanwhile, “gross indecency” – defined as a “public show of romantic relations” or “cross-dressing” can get six to 12 months in prison. LGBTTQAP+ organisations are also banned. Ghanaians have a duty to report transgressions. The Bill also requires “parents, teachers, religious bodies, media and state institutions” to “promote and protect… human sexual rights and family values” and ensure they are “preserved and integrated into the fabric of national life.” Senegal’s Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, who also came to power in 2024, told his Parliament that the Bill will punish “acts against nature” with prison sentences from five to 10 years. US Speeds up Signing of Bilateral Health Agreements, DRC Lawyers Challenge Minerals Deal 02/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan DRC Health Minister Dr Roger Kamba, US Charge D’Affaires in DRC, Ian McCary, DRC Prime Minister Judith Tuluka Suminwa and Finance Minister Doudou Fwamba, at the signing of the health MOU last week. The United States has moved at speed to secure several new bilateral health Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) in the past week, including, for the first time, four in Latin America – with the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala and Panama. To date (2 March), the US has signed 24 bilateral health MOUs in terms of the Trump administration’s America First Global Health Strategy. Announcing its agreement with Panama, the first MOU within Latin America, the US State Department described it as “strengthening Western hemisphere health security”, which it added is “a priority”. The four Latin American agreements involve smaller grants and are almost wholly focused on disease surveillance. The other 20 bilateral agreements are all with African countries – mostly previous recipients of health grants via the now disbanded US Agency for International Development (USAID) and decimated US President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Several of these countries are facing dire shortages of medicines for HIV, tuberculosis, and maternal and child health as a result of the US withdrawal of funds. The five-year MOUs are aimed at rapidly transferring financial responsibility for these key health services to countries themselves – as some, such as Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – derived over half their HIV budgets from donors, particularly the US. In the DRC, for example, at least half the antiretroviral medication it used was covered by the US. High parting price However, the parting price for these transitional MOUs includes extensive investment in infectious disease surveillance networks. The aim is to supply the US with pathogen information within a week of any outbreak to not only “keep America safe” but to give US firms exclusive access to pathogen information, which will enable them to make vaccines, medicines and diagnostics to combat these. The US-DRC MOU, signed on 26 February, focuses extensively on “strengthening the DRC’s capacity to detect and contain infectious disease outbreaks before they spread internationally”, according to a US State Department statement. The DRC has experienced recent Ebola outbreaks and, for the past year, the biggest mpox outbreak in the world. According to the MOU, the US commits to investing up to $900 million over five years and the DRC commits to increasing its health expenditure by $300 million. The bulk of the money will go into “a national integrated surveillance and outbreak response system, including a high-quality laboratory network capable of detecting and investigating infectious disease outbreaks within seven days”. “Under this system, relevant authorities, including the United States and other partners, will coordinate epidemic preparedness and rapid response measures to contain outbreaks and prevent their spread to neighboring areas,” according to the statement. The MOU also aims to modernise data and disease surveillance systems with “enhanced electronic medical records and interoperable platforms”, professionalise community health workers and “expand integrated delivery of essential health services for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, polio, and maternal and child health”. First, the minerals… Guinea and the US signed a minerals MOU before the health MOU. The US held off signing an MOU with the DRC in terms of its “America First Global Health Strategy” on 5 December, when it signed deals with Rwanda and Kenya on the sidelines of the signing of a peace accord between Rwanda and the DRC. Instead, the US and the DRC signed a “strategic partnership agreement” to “promote secure, reliable, and mutually beneficial critical mineral flows for commercial and defense purposes”. The DRC is one of the world’s most important sources of rare earth minerals, but China has dominated the purchasing and processing of its minerals. In the past two months, the DRC has opened its rare minerals supply to the US. In late January, the DRC sent the US a shortlist of state-owned assets involving manganese, copper, cobalt, gold and lithium, for US investors to consider as part of a minerals partnership, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, the US MOU with Guinea, signed on 27 February, was also preceded by a minerals MOU, signed with the US on 5 February, giving the US access to “critical minerals”. The health MOU prioritises strengthening the country’s “laboratory networks with biosafety and biosecurity management aligned with international standards by 2027”. Legal backlash in DRC But not all countries want to exchange their minerals and other assets for aid. A group of lawyers in the DRC are challenging the minerals MOU in their Constitutional Court, arguing that it violates the country’s Constitution in various ways, including undermining national sovereignty over natural resources. “By filing this case with the Constitutional Court, we are assuming our responsibility as Congolese citizens to protect the sovereignty of our country and safeguard our patrimony for future generations,” said attorney Jean-Marie Kalonji, one of the plaintiffs. The case has yet to be heard. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe recently backed out of talks with the US as it was unhappy with what the US required from it in terms of outbreaks. “Zimbabwe was being asked to share its biological resources and data over an extended period, with no corresponding guarantee of access to any medical innovations—such as vaccines, diagnostics, or treatments—that might result from that shared data,” explained Nick Mangwana, Secretary for Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services. “In essence, our nation would provide the raw materials for scientific discovery without any assurance that the end products would be accessible to our people should a future health crisis emerge. The United States, meanwhile, was not offering reciprocal sharing of its own epidemiological data with our health authorities.” Kenya’s MOU with the US, the first of the series, has been halted by the country’s High Court as it faces two separate court challenges for giving the US access to patient data and pathogen information. The government of Zambia acknowledged last week that it is unhappy with part of a proposed health aid deal with the United States that “does not align with the country’s interests” and has requested “revisions” to the MOU. The Zambia-US bilateral health deal was due to be signed last December, but it faltered after the US linked the billion-dollar deal to access to Zambian minerals, particularly copper and cobalt. Just four days before the MOU was due to be signed, the US announced that the two countries had committed to a plan to unlock “a substantial grant package of US support in exchange for collaboration in the mining sector and clear business sector reforms that will drive economic growth and commercial investment that benefit both the United States and Zambia”. ‘Extractive’ policy Sophie Harman, professor of international politics at Queen Mary University of London, argues in last week’s BMJ that “extraction is the core principle of US President Donald Trump’s America First global health policy”. “The current US administration does not aim to improve health worldwide, instead it intends to make US companies richer and facilitate ‘leveraging US global health leadership to compete with China’,” writes Harman. “Entering a deal with the US government is a potential lose-lose for states. These countries risk losing resources and opportunities for wealth creation in their own countries, threatening alliances with China for relatively small advances in health, and creating political turmoil in domestic courts.” Europe is Failing to Curb Tobacco Use – Especially in Women 28/02/2026 Kerry Cullinan Smoking prevalence is higher amongst European women than anywhere else in the world. Europe is failing to curb tobacco use – particularly in women and girls – and will have the world’s highest prevalence by 2030, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) European region revealed this week. Of the region’s 53 states, tobacco use is highest in Serbia, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Montenegro – all exceeding 30% prevalence in people over the age of 14. The global average for tobacco use in people aged 15 and over is 19.5%, while in the WHO European Region it is 24.1%. The rate of female smokers is the highest in the world at 17.3% – or one in five women. This is almost double the prevalence of the next highest region, 9.1% in the Americas. Europe is the only WHO region not expected to meet the global target of a 30% reduction in tobacco use among women by 2025. It is currently projected to achieve only a 12% reduction between 2010 and 2025. “The 62 million female smokers in the European Region represent over 40% of the 143 million female smokers in the world,” according to the WHO, which released 10 new factsheets on tobacco consumption this week. “European girls aged 13 to 15 now have the highest tobacco use rates among their age group anywhere in the world,” continued Kluge. “That is not an accident, it’s the result of deliberate industry strategy targeting young people with flavoured products and sophisticated social media marketing. “Countries like Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands are proving it is possible to push back – by regulating novel products, banning flavours and restricting advertising. Every country in this region should be doing the same, to protect future generations.” Slow decreases While Europe’s tobacco consumption is decreasing, it is happening fairly slowly. In 2000, 47,5% of European men used tobacco, and by 2025 this was 30,3%. In women, tobacco use decreased from 22,3% in 2000 to 17,3% in 2025. “Tobacco use already causes over 1.1 million deaths from noncommunicable diseases in the European Region each year – and without accelerated action, we will stay the worst-performing region in the world by 2030,” said Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe. “We have a responsibility to change course now: to shield young people from nicotine addiction, prevent industry interference in health policy, and enforce the regulations that will prevent a lifetime of avoidable harm.” Uneven use of taxes Tax increases are being applied in some European countries – and in 28 countries, taxes represented more than 75% of the retail price of the most popular brand of cigarettes in 2024 – an increase from 16 countries in 2008. Twelve countries have increased prices since 2014, including Belgium, Czechia, Finland, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, North Macedonia, Slovakia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Uzbekistan. But cigarettes have become more affordable in 19 countries – up from just nine in 2022 – which may lead to higher smoking initiation, the WHO warned. Cigarettes are cheapest in Belarus, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan, and most expensive in Turkmenistan, Ireland, the UK and France. Uneven regulation Regulating e-cigarettes is uneven across the region. The region has the second-highest e-cigarette use prevalence in the world, with an estimated 31.4 million users, and regulation of e-cigarettes is fragmented. “Decades of progress are at risk unless policies keep pace with a rapidly evolving nicotine landscape,” said Kristina Mauer-Stender, Regional Adviser for Tobacco Control at WHO/Europe. “Applying the same strong tobacco control tools to new and emerging products is essential if we want to protect young people and sustain public health gains.” The fact sheets show that, while most countries in the region have strong tobacco monitoring systems and require large health warnings on packaging, implementation is uneven across other measures. Only 18 countries have comprehensive smoke-free laws covering all public spaces. Just 12 provide national quit lines and cover the cost of cessation services. Comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising and promotion exist in only 13 countries. Image Credits: Zaya Odeesho/ Unsplash, pixabay. WHO Updates Flu Vaccine in Response to Rapid Spread of New Variant 27/02/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen Dr Maria Van Kerkhove (2nd left) , Dr Wenqing Zhang, Dr Richard Webby and Prof Nicola Lewis present the WHO recommendation for the seasonal flu vaccine composition. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced its updated recommendations for the 2026-2027 Northern Hemisphere seasonal flu vaccine on Friday, a critical adjustment driven by the rapid global dominance of a new A(H3N2) variant known as subclade K. Following four days of intense consultation by the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS), experts finalized the flu vaccine composition to ensure it matches circulating threats. While announcing these seasonal updates at a press conference on Friday, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s Director ad interim for Epidemic and Pandemic Management, pointed to the broader danger of respiratory viruses, warning that “the threat of an influenza pandemic is real and everpresent”. She emphasized the critical need for flu vaccination to protect against severe disease and death. There are around a billion cases of seasonal influenza annually, including three to five million cases of severe illness. It causes an estimated 290,000 to 650,000 respiratory deaths annually, according to the WHO. Updated flu vaccine in response to rapid rise of new variant ‘subclade K’ A series of frequency charts illustrate the global dominance of the A(H3N2) subclade K variant. Since its sudden emergence in July and August of 2025, subclade K (scientifically classified as J.2.4.1) has rapidly spread globally, shifting the baseline of flu activity and replacing earlier dominant strains. This variant now accounts for the majority of influenza viruses reported across multiple regions. To react to this development, WHO issued two recommendations: Egg-based flu vaccines for the upcoming season include an A/Missouri/11/2025 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus, an A/Darwin/1454/2025 (H3N2)-like virus, and a B/Tokyo/EIS13-175/2025 (B/Victoria lineage)-like virus. Cell-based flu vaccines will similarly target the Missouri and Darwin strains, alongside a B/Pennsylvania/14/2025-like virus. Notably, the B/Yamagata lineage remains excluded from the formula, as no cases of this lineage have been documented since March 2020. Shifting flu seasons across hemispheres Prof Nicola Lewis highlighted prolonged influenza activity in the Southern Hemisphere (right). The unchecked spread of subclade K has significantly altered the traditional flu calendar. According to Professor Nicola Lewis, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre at the Francis Crick Institute in London, the Southern Hemisphere experienced complex disease dynamics. While the season began with H1 dominance, the sudden arrival of H3 subclade K extended the flu’s impact considerably in countries like Australia, she explained in a briefing on Friday. New Flu Strain Sweeping Europe Says WHO; but Vaccines Remain Effective, ECDC Finds Consequently, the virus’s spread caused the Northern Hemisphere to experience an unusually early start to its own influenza season, with countries such as the United Kingdom and Japan recording surges weeks ahead of historical averages. Zoonotic threats and pandemic preparedness Dr Richard Webby noted that while zoonotic threats primarily impact animal populations, the WHO remains on high alert for potential human infections. Beyond seasonal strains, health authorities remain on high alert regarding the dangers of avian and swine influenza. Globally, A(H5) viruses maintain a robust presence in bird populations across almost all regions except Oceania. Notably, spillover events into humans have recently included atypical subtypes like A(H5N2) in Mexico and A(H5N5) in the United States, causing disease ranging from moderate to fatal. Since September 2025, 25 human infections involving zoonotic influenza have been reported across six countries, primarily linked to direct animal exposure without evidence of human-to-human transmission. Fourteen of these cases involved H9N2 infections detected in China, noted Dr Richard Webby, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, USA. In response to slight evolutionary changes in these animal viruses, WHO is proactively recommending the development of an updated Candidate Vaccine Virus (CVV) for avian influenza A(H9N2) to ensure global pandemic preparedness is not caught off guard. Prioritizing vaccination and combatting misinformation Van Kerkhove highlighted that safe and effective vaccines remain the primary defense. With a highly transmissible strain circulating, experts reiterate that safe and effective flu vaccines remain the primary defense, particularly for vulnerable populations and healthcare workers. However, WHO is not ignoring public hesitancy. Van Kerkhove emphasized that global health leaders must actively listen to communities and take their concerns seriously. “We are listening to people. There are legitimate questions that need to be answered,” she affirmed, noting that WHO is collaborating with community and faith-based leaders to combat willful misinformation campaigns and empower individuals to make informed health decisions. Image Credits: Felix Sassmannshausen. Drone Busts Delhi’s Spring Clean Air Myth 27/02/2026 Chetan Bhattacharji Drone footage dispels the myth the Delhi’s air pollution improves in spring. NEW DELHI – For years, residents of the Indian capital have looked to the skies in March with a sense of relief, believing that the notorious winter pollution had finally retreated. However, a drone armed with an air quality monitor has shattered this perception, revealing a massive blanket of toxic air hovering just above the city’s skyline. This vertical pollution acts like a pollution lid over the capital. It also contains unexpectedly high concentrations of dangerous particles that ground-level monitors often fail to capture. Dark surprise in the spring sky The study indicates the vast scale of Delhi’s pollution. One of the authors, Prof Sagnik Dey of theIndian Institute of Technology (ITT) Delhi, estimates this to be roughly 240,000 kgs, equivalent to some 1,200 oil drums. “Taking Delhi, 30 km by 40 km, and considering PM2.5 up to 1 km, we are talking 1200 km3 volume of air,” Dey told Health Policy Watch. “When PM2.5 is 200 ug/m3 on a day, we are talking about 2,40,000 kg of particles to be cleaned out.” Another surprise is that this smog blanket occurred in mid-March when climatic conditions, including and temperature, favour the dispersal of pollution, unlike in winter. The study was conducted by a team at IIT Delhi, from its South Delhi campus between 11-23 March, 2021. The research, published in Nature this month, shows that while the air at street level might seem manageable, the atmosphere 100 metres above the ground was 60% more toxic. The new findings raise questions about how much of Delhi’s air crisis is driven by local sources and why current emergency measures are failing to clear the sky. There is a lot of complex chemistry at work, churning out the lethal cocktail of pollutants. The ingredients and level of pollution change depending on whether it is morning, noon, evening or night. The authors – numbering 20 from institutions in nine countries ranging from the UK to China – say that the study provides enough impetus to study the pollution above the city more deeply, using drones, to improve models and policy action to reduce air pollution. Toxic mornings The most dangerous window for residents is between 5am and 8am, when a “suppressed planetary boundary layer” acts like a physical ceiling below 200 metres altitude, trapping pollutants near the surface thanks to factors like cooler air, low/no wind, and humidity levels. The planetary boundary layer (PBL) can be as low as 50m and as high as a couple of thousand, depending on the temperature, time of day or year, and other factors. Usually, the higher the PBL, the lower the concentration of pollutants at ground level, which is why in summer the level of particulate matter tends to be lower in hot places like Delhi. On one day, the study found PM2.5 concentrations reached a staggering 160 µg/m³ (micrograms/cubic metre) at an altitude of 100m, typically the height of a 30-storey residential building. Ground monitors recorded only 100 µg/m³; WHO’s daily safe limit is 15 µg/m³. The altitude of the toxic haze shows the strength of local emissions and regional transport, Dey says. “This calls for prioritising emission reduction as the main mitigation strategy through systemic long-term measures rather than short-term emergency measures trying to filter this large volume of toxic air,” he added. The Delhi government has resorted to using hundreds of water sprinklers on trucks and buildings to subdue dust. In the past, it built ‘smog towers’, essentially outdoor air purifiers, before conceding these are ineffective. As the sun rises and the ground warms, this “lid” expands, allowing the toxic air to disperse into higher altitudes. By noon and into the early evening, the air becomes significantly clearer, with temperatures reaching 30-35°C and humidity dropping to 40-50%. What causes Delhi’s pollution peaks? Delhi air pollution during peak pollution days in mid-November. The report breaks down a list of pollutants, secondary pollutants formed as a result of primary pollutants and other factors like temperature and chemical reactions. The chemicals produced include chloride, black carbon or soot, sulphur dioxide to some extent from coal combustion, nitrogen dioxide and ozone, especially during traffic rush hour. These are emitted by burning biomass, solid fuels, waste, and from industries. An increase in the levels of chloride and black carbon are linked to the burning of biomass and solid fuel, which could be in waste as well. Tackling waste burning has often been identified by experts as a top priority to reduce the region’s air pollution. Exposure to these pollutants, particularly fine particulate matter like black carbon, is linked to severe respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, including asthma, lung cancer, and strokes. Additionally, nitrogen dioxide and ground-level ozone can significantly reduce lung function and trigger chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations. Traffic is a prime suspect A significant cause for this hovering haze is the city’s roads. The report highlights the staggering impact of vehicular pollution, noting that traffic contributes 40-50% of PM2.5 during peak hours. In areas near major traffic corridors, the drones detected high levels of “equivalent black carbon,” a particularly soot-heavy component of exhaust. This traffic-led pollution does not simply blow away. Instead, emissions from the millions of vehicles on Delhi’s roads build up overnight, trapped by the shallow boundary layer. This nocturnal build-up is further complicated by other local sources, including waste burning, industrial activities, and residential cooking. The study found that chloride, often linked to the burning of plastic and electronic waste, spiked in the early hours of the morning, acting as a chemical trigger that causes particles to grow and thicken the haze. Call for more drones To capture this data, researchers utilised a custom-designed drone platform built by an Indian start-up, BotLab Dynamics. The drone, weighing roughly 7.5 kg, was equipped with a modified low-cost sensor (LCS). The study involved 40 separate drone flights near heavy traffic corridors. However, back in March 2021, time was tight due to Covid restrictions. Now, the authors have called for more drone-based surveillance, at higher altitudes, and with better equipment. In the right conditions, tons of these pollutants can descend and threaten public health. Image Credits: Gustaf von Zeipel/ Unsplash, Chetan Bhattacharji. Posts navigation Older postsNewer posts This site uses cookies to help give you the best experience on our website. Cookies enable us to collect information that helps us personalise your experience and improve the functionality and performance of our site. By continuing to read our website, we assume you agree to this, otherwise you can adjust your browser settings. Please read our cookie and Privacy Policy. Our Cookies and Privacy Policy Loading Comments... You must be logged in to post a comment.
Urgent Need to Expand Access to GLP-1 Medicine to Reduce Obesity 04/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan Most people with obesity now live in low and middle-income countries. WORLD OBESITY DAY – Most people living with obesity are now in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), according to the World Obesity Federation (WOF) – yet people living in these countries are least likely to have access to the Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 (GLP-1) medicine that is transforming treatment outcomes in wealthier countries. Around one billion people are currently living with obesity, and four billion people – almost half the world’s population – are projected to be overweight or obese by 2035. Obesity in children has risen from 4% in 1975 to 20% by 2025. People with obesity are at greater risk of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), particularly heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure and diabetes. The GLP-1 drugs are transforming obesity treatment after years of behaviour-based policy interventions have failed to stop the rise of obesity. In clinical trials of newer GLP-1 drugs such as semaglutide (Wegovy), obese patients without diabetes lose 15%–25% of their body weight over 12 to 18 months. The World Health Organization (WHO) issued its first guidelines for their use to address obesity last December. (Several have already been approved as essential drugs to treat type 2 diabetes). Around 10 million people in the US were estimated to be on GLP-1 drugs in 2025, and this is projected to rise to 25 million by 2030. Australians, New Zealanders and Europeans are also embracing the drugs. Scarce and expensive But these medicines are scarce in LMICs despite the growing need. Between 2010 and 2022, obesity more than doubled across all LMICs and tripled in low-income countries, according to the WOF. In South Africa, for example, the prevalence of obesity in adults rose by 38% between 1998 and 2017, affecting 28% of the adult population, with women having double the rate of men. But GLP-1 drugs are “currently prohibitively expensive, prone to massive repeated supply shortages, and unavailable from state clinics and most medical aids”, according to South African clinicians Dr Francois Venter and Dr Nomathemba Chandiwana. The monthly cost of the medication varies from around $100 to $300, way out of the reach of the vast majority of South Africans. Only four of the 20 countries most impacted or projected to be most impacted by rising obesity rates cover obesity medicine in their public health systems, according to the Economist Impact’s Global Obesity Response Index. Only the UK covers all four forms of evidence-based obesity care – nutrition counselling, intensive behavioural therapy, medications, and metabolic and bariatric surgery –through public insurance. Canada, China, Mexico, Nigeria, Rwanda and South Africa offer no national-level coverage of any of these interventions. “Without deep price reductions and scalable care systems, obesity treatment will remain out of reach, and health systems will continue to absorb the far higher costs of untreated disease,” according to the Medicines Patent Pool this week. However, access to GLP-1 medicine should improve as the key compound patents for semaglutide (Wegovy) expire within the next few months, with generic medicine poised to enter the market. Curbing ultra-processed food Unhealthy food habits drive obesity While medicine is key to reducing obesity, so too are policy measures to rein in the industries that promote ultra-processed food that drives the condition. Key interventions are high taxes on ultra-processed food and sugary drinks; front-of-package warning labels on food high in sugar, salt and fat; and restrictions on marketing these products to children. However, of the 20 most affected countries, only one – Mexico – taxes both unhealthy foods and drinks, according to the Global Obesity Response Index. Only three – Brazil, Canada, and Mexico – require front-of-package nutrition labelling. Image Credits: Flip. First Vaccines in Three Years Reach Besieged Sudanese State 03/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan A UNICEF-supported mobile clinic provides healthcare to people displaced by violence in Darfur, Sudan. The first vaccines to reach Sudan’s South Kordofan state in nearly three years were delivered this week, according to Save the Children. South Kordofan has not received any vaccines since July 2023 due to a siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF),which has blocked medical and humanitarian supplies. “This left thousands of children without protection from preventable disease at a time when malnutrition and displacement were putting them at heightened risk,” said Save the Children. The organisation delivered two truckloads containing 18 metric tons of routine vaccines to Kadugli town in the south-central state over the past few days. The shipment includes the tuberculosis BCG vaccine, oral polio vaccine (OPV) and pentavalent vaccine (against diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B, whooping cough and Hib), as well as vaccines for rotavirus, pneumococcal, measles, meningococcal A, inactivated and Yellow Fever. The vaccines, funded by Gavi, will support immunisation in five localities, including Kadugli where famine was confirmed in September 2025. Families in Al Reif Alshargi, Aldalang, Habila and Al Goos will also benefit, with more than 24,500 children set to receive routine vaccinations this year. In addition, nearly 6,000 women will receive the tetanus vaccine. “Vaccines are one of the simplest and most effective tools we have to prevent child deaths,” said Dr Bashir Kamal Eldin, Save the Children’s health and nutrition director in Sudan. “This vaccine delivery is a breakthrough for thousands of children and mothers who have endured months without reliable access to food and basic health services, conditions that have put their lives at serious risk.” However, Eldin warned that the situation remains extremely fragile: “Without sustained peace and guaranteed humanitarian access, these gains could quickly be reversed.” ‘Humanitarian catastrophe’ The World Health Organization (WHO) has described the situation in Sudan as a “humanitarian catastrophe of staggering dimensions” in its latest report on the conflict. The WHO estimates that 33,7 million people require assistance. Some 11.5 million people have been forcibly displaced, with over 4.2 million fleeing into neighbouring countries. Chad recently closed its border with Sudan as it cannot cope with the influx of refugees. “More than 21.2 million people are experiencing acute food insecurity,” said the WHO, with violence disrupting food and aid supply chains and agricultural production. Some areas, including El Fasher (North Darfur) and Kadugli (South Kordofan), are facing famine, categorised as “Integrated Phase Classification Phase 5 (IPC Phase 5)”, when over 20% of households face an extreme lack of food and over 30% of children face acute malnutrition. “The latest nutrition survey in Um Baru (North Darfur) recorded a Global Acute Malnutrition rate of 53%, of which 35% were classified as Severe Acute Malnutrition. Coupled with high rates of malnutrition, an overstretched health system and low immunisation coverage, this increases the risk of disease outbreaks and their catastrophic impacts,” said the WHO. “Multiple disease outbreaks are occurring simultaneously, including cholera, dengue, malaria, measles, hepatitis E, and diphtheria. “Over 40 000 injuries have been reported amid the ongoing conflict. Civilians continue to be killed, injured and displaced in ongoing attacks in the Darfur and Kordofan regions. Sexual violence remains pervasive.” Between 15 April 2023 and 31 December 2025, the WHO has formally validated 201 attacks on health care, 1,858 deaths and 490 injuries. “Many health facilities have been destroyed, looted, or are functioning with severe shortages of staff, medicines, vaccines, equipment, and supplies,” the WHO concludes. Image Credits: Mohammed Jamal / UNICEF. Ghana and Senegal Consider Harsher Measures Against LGBTQ People 03/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan Senegal’s President Ousmane Sonko. The Parliaments of both Ghana and Senegal are considering harsher penalties for same-sex relationships. Last month, Ghana’s Parliament had its first reading of an anti-LGBTQ Bill, which is now being considered by its Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. Meanwhile, Senegal’s Cabinet approved a Bill for its Parliament last month that will double the maximum penalty for same sex relationships – up to 10 years in prison. Ghana passed an anti-LGBTQ bill in 2024, but it was not signed into law by the country’s then-president, Nana Akufo-Addo. The current president, John Mahama, was elected in 2024 and has stated his readiness to pass anti-LGBTQ laws. Ghana’s Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill is similar to the one passed in 2024, and contains some of the most wide-ranging legal restrictions on human sexuality. First off, the Bill aims to criminalise LGBTTQAP+ people. This applies to “a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, ally, pansexual or a person of any other sexual orientation that is contrary to the sociocultural relationship between a male and a female”. Any sexual activities by LGBTTQAP+ people will get a prison sentence of between two months and three years. Meanwhile, “gross indecency” – defined as a “public show of romantic relations” or “cross-dressing” can get six to 12 months in prison. LGBTTQAP+ organisations are also banned. Ghanaians have a duty to report transgressions. The Bill also requires “parents, teachers, religious bodies, media and state institutions” to “promote and protect… human sexual rights and family values” and ensure they are “preserved and integrated into the fabric of national life.” Senegal’s Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, who also came to power in 2024, told his Parliament that the Bill will punish “acts against nature” with prison sentences from five to 10 years. US Speeds up Signing of Bilateral Health Agreements, DRC Lawyers Challenge Minerals Deal 02/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan DRC Health Minister Dr Roger Kamba, US Charge D’Affaires in DRC, Ian McCary, DRC Prime Minister Judith Tuluka Suminwa and Finance Minister Doudou Fwamba, at the signing of the health MOU last week. The United States has moved at speed to secure several new bilateral health Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) in the past week, including, for the first time, four in Latin America – with the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala and Panama. To date (2 March), the US has signed 24 bilateral health MOUs in terms of the Trump administration’s America First Global Health Strategy. Announcing its agreement with Panama, the first MOU within Latin America, the US State Department described it as “strengthening Western hemisphere health security”, which it added is “a priority”. The four Latin American agreements involve smaller grants and are almost wholly focused on disease surveillance. The other 20 bilateral agreements are all with African countries – mostly previous recipients of health grants via the now disbanded US Agency for International Development (USAID) and decimated US President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Several of these countries are facing dire shortages of medicines for HIV, tuberculosis, and maternal and child health as a result of the US withdrawal of funds. The five-year MOUs are aimed at rapidly transferring financial responsibility for these key health services to countries themselves – as some, such as Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – derived over half their HIV budgets from donors, particularly the US. In the DRC, for example, at least half the antiretroviral medication it used was covered by the US. High parting price However, the parting price for these transitional MOUs includes extensive investment in infectious disease surveillance networks. The aim is to supply the US with pathogen information within a week of any outbreak to not only “keep America safe” but to give US firms exclusive access to pathogen information, which will enable them to make vaccines, medicines and diagnostics to combat these. The US-DRC MOU, signed on 26 February, focuses extensively on “strengthening the DRC’s capacity to detect and contain infectious disease outbreaks before they spread internationally”, according to a US State Department statement. The DRC has experienced recent Ebola outbreaks and, for the past year, the biggest mpox outbreak in the world. According to the MOU, the US commits to investing up to $900 million over five years and the DRC commits to increasing its health expenditure by $300 million. The bulk of the money will go into “a national integrated surveillance and outbreak response system, including a high-quality laboratory network capable of detecting and investigating infectious disease outbreaks within seven days”. “Under this system, relevant authorities, including the United States and other partners, will coordinate epidemic preparedness and rapid response measures to contain outbreaks and prevent their spread to neighboring areas,” according to the statement. The MOU also aims to modernise data and disease surveillance systems with “enhanced electronic medical records and interoperable platforms”, professionalise community health workers and “expand integrated delivery of essential health services for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, polio, and maternal and child health”. First, the minerals… Guinea and the US signed a minerals MOU before the health MOU. The US held off signing an MOU with the DRC in terms of its “America First Global Health Strategy” on 5 December, when it signed deals with Rwanda and Kenya on the sidelines of the signing of a peace accord between Rwanda and the DRC. Instead, the US and the DRC signed a “strategic partnership agreement” to “promote secure, reliable, and mutually beneficial critical mineral flows for commercial and defense purposes”. The DRC is one of the world’s most important sources of rare earth minerals, but China has dominated the purchasing and processing of its minerals. In the past two months, the DRC has opened its rare minerals supply to the US. In late January, the DRC sent the US a shortlist of state-owned assets involving manganese, copper, cobalt, gold and lithium, for US investors to consider as part of a minerals partnership, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, the US MOU with Guinea, signed on 27 February, was also preceded by a minerals MOU, signed with the US on 5 February, giving the US access to “critical minerals”. The health MOU prioritises strengthening the country’s “laboratory networks with biosafety and biosecurity management aligned with international standards by 2027”. Legal backlash in DRC But not all countries want to exchange their minerals and other assets for aid. A group of lawyers in the DRC are challenging the minerals MOU in their Constitutional Court, arguing that it violates the country’s Constitution in various ways, including undermining national sovereignty over natural resources. “By filing this case with the Constitutional Court, we are assuming our responsibility as Congolese citizens to protect the sovereignty of our country and safeguard our patrimony for future generations,” said attorney Jean-Marie Kalonji, one of the plaintiffs. The case has yet to be heard. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe recently backed out of talks with the US as it was unhappy with what the US required from it in terms of outbreaks. “Zimbabwe was being asked to share its biological resources and data over an extended period, with no corresponding guarantee of access to any medical innovations—such as vaccines, diagnostics, or treatments—that might result from that shared data,” explained Nick Mangwana, Secretary for Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services. “In essence, our nation would provide the raw materials for scientific discovery without any assurance that the end products would be accessible to our people should a future health crisis emerge. The United States, meanwhile, was not offering reciprocal sharing of its own epidemiological data with our health authorities.” Kenya’s MOU with the US, the first of the series, has been halted by the country’s High Court as it faces two separate court challenges for giving the US access to patient data and pathogen information. The government of Zambia acknowledged last week that it is unhappy with part of a proposed health aid deal with the United States that “does not align with the country’s interests” and has requested “revisions” to the MOU. The Zambia-US bilateral health deal was due to be signed last December, but it faltered after the US linked the billion-dollar deal to access to Zambian minerals, particularly copper and cobalt. Just four days before the MOU was due to be signed, the US announced that the two countries had committed to a plan to unlock “a substantial grant package of US support in exchange for collaboration in the mining sector and clear business sector reforms that will drive economic growth and commercial investment that benefit both the United States and Zambia”. ‘Extractive’ policy Sophie Harman, professor of international politics at Queen Mary University of London, argues in last week’s BMJ that “extraction is the core principle of US President Donald Trump’s America First global health policy”. “The current US administration does not aim to improve health worldwide, instead it intends to make US companies richer and facilitate ‘leveraging US global health leadership to compete with China’,” writes Harman. “Entering a deal with the US government is a potential lose-lose for states. These countries risk losing resources and opportunities for wealth creation in their own countries, threatening alliances with China for relatively small advances in health, and creating political turmoil in domestic courts.” Europe is Failing to Curb Tobacco Use – Especially in Women 28/02/2026 Kerry Cullinan Smoking prevalence is higher amongst European women than anywhere else in the world. Europe is failing to curb tobacco use – particularly in women and girls – and will have the world’s highest prevalence by 2030, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) European region revealed this week. Of the region’s 53 states, tobacco use is highest in Serbia, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Montenegro – all exceeding 30% prevalence in people over the age of 14. The global average for tobacco use in people aged 15 and over is 19.5%, while in the WHO European Region it is 24.1%. The rate of female smokers is the highest in the world at 17.3% – or one in five women. This is almost double the prevalence of the next highest region, 9.1% in the Americas. Europe is the only WHO region not expected to meet the global target of a 30% reduction in tobacco use among women by 2025. It is currently projected to achieve only a 12% reduction between 2010 and 2025. “The 62 million female smokers in the European Region represent over 40% of the 143 million female smokers in the world,” according to the WHO, which released 10 new factsheets on tobacco consumption this week. “European girls aged 13 to 15 now have the highest tobacco use rates among their age group anywhere in the world,” continued Kluge. “That is not an accident, it’s the result of deliberate industry strategy targeting young people with flavoured products and sophisticated social media marketing. “Countries like Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands are proving it is possible to push back – by regulating novel products, banning flavours and restricting advertising. Every country in this region should be doing the same, to protect future generations.” Slow decreases While Europe’s tobacco consumption is decreasing, it is happening fairly slowly. In 2000, 47,5% of European men used tobacco, and by 2025 this was 30,3%. In women, tobacco use decreased from 22,3% in 2000 to 17,3% in 2025. “Tobacco use already causes over 1.1 million deaths from noncommunicable diseases in the European Region each year – and without accelerated action, we will stay the worst-performing region in the world by 2030,” said Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe. “We have a responsibility to change course now: to shield young people from nicotine addiction, prevent industry interference in health policy, and enforce the regulations that will prevent a lifetime of avoidable harm.” Uneven use of taxes Tax increases are being applied in some European countries – and in 28 countries, taxes represented more than 75% of the retail price of the most popular brand of cigarettes in 2024 – an increase from 16 countries in 2008. Twelve countries have increased prices since 2014, including Belgium, Czechia, Finland, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, North Macedonia, Slovakia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Uzbekistan. But cigarettes have become more affordable in 19 countries – up from just nine in 2022 – which may lead to higher smoking initiation, the WHO warned. Cigarettes are cheapest in Belarus, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan, and most expensive in Turkmenistan, Ireland, the UK and France. Uneven regulation Regulating e-cigarettes is uneven across the region. The region has the second-highest e-cigarette use prevalence in the world, with an estimated 31.4 million users, and regulation of e-cigarettes is fragmented. “Decades of progress are at risk unless policies keep pace with a rapidly evolving nicotine landscape,” said Kristina Mauer-Stender, Regional Adviser for Tobacco Control at WHO/Europe. “Applying the same strong tobacco control tools to new and emerging products is essential if we want to protect young people and sustain public health gains.” The fact sheets show that, while most countries in the region have strong tobacco monitoring systems and require large health warnings on packaging, implementation is uneven across other measures. Only 18 countries have comprehensive smoke-free laws covering all public spaces. Just 12 provide national quit lines and cover the cost of cessation services. Comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising and promotion exist in only 13 countries. Image Credits: Zaya Odeesho/ Unsplash, pixabay. WHO Updates Flu Vaccine in Response to Rapid Spread of New Variant 27/02/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen Dr Maria Van Kerkhove (2nd left) , Dr Wenqing Zhang, Dr Richard Webby and Prof Nicola Lewis present the WHO recommendation for the seasonal flu vaccine composition. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced its updated recommendations for the 2026-2027 Northern Hemisphere seasonal flu vaccine on Friday, a critical adjustment driven by the rapid global dominance of a new A(H3N2) variant known as subclade K. Following four days of intense consultation by the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS), experts finalized the flu vaccine composition to ensure it matches circulating threats. While announcing these seasonal updates at a press conference on Friday, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s Director ad interim for Epidemic and Pandemic Management, pointed to the broader danger of respiratory viruses, warning that “the threat of an influenza pandemic is real and everpresent”. She emphasized the critical need for flu vaccination to protect against severe disease and death. There are around a billion cases of seasonal influenza annually, including three to five million cases of severe illness. It causes an estimated 290,000 to 650,000 respiratory deaths annually, according to the WHO. Updated flu vaccine in response to rapid rise of new variant ‘subclade K’ A series of frequency charts illustrate the global dominance of the A(H3N2) subclade K variant. Since its sudden emergence in July and August of 2025, subclade K (scientifically classified as J.2.4.1) has rapidly spread globally, shifting the baseline of flu activity and replacing earlier dominant strains. This variant now accounts for the majority of influenza viruses reported across multiple regions. To react to this development, WHO issued two recommendations: Egg-based flu vaccines for the upcoming season include an A/Missouri/11/2025 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus, an A/Darwin/1454/2025 (H3N2)-like virus, and a B/Tokyo/EIS13-175/2025 (B/Victoria lineage)-like virus. Cell-based flu vaccines will similarly target the Missouri and Darwin strains, alongside a B/Pennsylvania/14/2025-like virus. Notably, the B/Yamagata lineage remains excluded from the formula, as no cases of this lineage have been documented since March 2020. Shifting flu seasons across hemispheres Prof Nicola Lewis highlighted prolonged influenza activity in the Southern Hemisphere (right). The unchecked spread of subclade K has significantly altered the traditional flu calendar. According to Professor Nicola Lewis, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre at the Francis Crick Institute in London, the Southern Hemisphere experienced complex disease dynamics. While the season began with H1 dominance, the sudden arrival of H3 subclade K extended the flu’s impact considerably in countries like Australia, she explained in a briefing on Friday. New Flu Strain Sweeping Europe Says WHO; but Vaccines Remain Effective, ECDC Finds Consequently, the virus’s spread caused the Northern Hemisphere to experience an unusually early start to its own influenza season, with countries such as the United Kingdom and Japan recording surges weeks ahead of historical averages. Zoonotic threats and pandemic preparedness Dr Richard Webby noted that while zoonotic threats primarily impact animal populations, the WHO remains on high alert for potential human infections. Beyond seasonal strains, health authorities remain on high alert regarding the dangers of avian and swine influenza. Globally, A(H5) viruses maintain a robust presence in bird populations across almost all regions except Oceania. Notably, spillover events into humans have recently included atypical subtypes like A(H5N2) in Mexico and A(H5N5) in the United States, causing disease ranging from moderate to fatal. Since September 2025, 25 human infections involving zoonotic influenza have been reported across six countries, primarily linked to direct animal exposure without evidence of human-to-human transmission. Fourteen of these cases involved H9N2 infections detected in China, noted Dr Richard Webby, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, USA. In response to slight evolutionary changes in these animal viruses, WHO is proactively recommending the development of an updated Candidate Vaccine Virus (CVV) for avian influenza A(H9N2) to ensure global pandemic preparedness is not caught off guard. Prioritizing vaccination and combatting misinformation Van Kerkhove highlighted that safe and effective vaccines remain the primary defense. With a highly transmissible strain circulating, experts reiterate that safe and effective flu vaccines remain the primary defense, particularly for vulnerable populations and healthcare workers. However, WHO is not ignoring public hesitancy. Van Kerkhove emphasized that global health leaders must actively listen to communities and take their concerns seriously. “We are listening to people. There are legitimate questions that need to be answered,” she affirmed, noting that WHO is collaborating with community and faith-based leaders to combat willful misinformation campaigns and empower individuals to make informed health decisions. Image Credits: Felix Sassmannshausen. Drone Busts Delhi’s Spring Clean Air Myth 27/02/2026 Chetan Bhattacharji Drone footage dispels the myth the Delhi’s air pollution improves in spring. NEW DELHI – For years, residents of the Indian capital have looked to the skies in March with a sense of relief, believing that the notorious winter pollution had finally retreated. However, a drone armed with an air quality monitor has shattered this perception, revealing a massive blanket of toxic air hovering just above the city’s skyline. This vertical pollution acts like a pollution lid over the capital. It also contains unexpectedly high concentrations of dangerous particles that ground-level monitors often fail to capture. Dark surprise in the spring sky The study indicates the vast scale of Delhi’s pollution. One of the authors, Prof Sagnik Dey of theIndian Institute of Technology (ITT) Delhi, estimates this to be roughly 240,000 kgs, equivalent to some 1,200 oil drums. “Taking Delhi, 30 km by 40 km, and considering PM2.5 up to 1 km, we are talking 1200 km3 volume of air,” Dey told Health Policy Watch. “When PM2.5 is 200 ug/m3 on a day, we are talking about 2,40,000 kg of particles to be cleaned out.” Another surprise is that this smog blanket occurred in mid-March when climatic conditions, including and temperature, favour the dispersal of pollution, unlike in winter. The study was conducted by a team at IIT Delhi, from its South Delhi campus between 11-23 March, 2021. The research, published in Nature this month, shows that while the air at street level might seem manageable, the atmosphere 100 metres above the ground was 60% more toxic. The new findings raise questions about how much of Delhi’s air crisis is driven by local sources and why current emergency measures are failing to clear the sky. There is a lot of complex chemistry at work, churning out the lethal cocktail of pollutants. The ingredients and level of pollution change depending on whether it is morning, noon, evening or night. The authors – numbering 20 from institutions in nine countries ranging from the UK to China – say that the study provides enough impetus to study the pollution above the city more deeply, using drones, to improve models and policy action to reduce air pollution. Toxic mornings The most dangerous window for residents is between 5am and 8am, when a “suppressed planetary boundary layer” acts like a physical ceiling below 200 metres altitude, trapping pollutants near the surface thanks to factors like cooler air, low/no wind, and humidity levels. The planetary boundary layer (PBL) can be as low as 50m and as high as a couple of thousand, depending on the temperature, time of day or year, and other factors. Usually, the higher the PBL, the lower the concentration of pollutants at ground level, which is why in summer the level of particulate matter tends to be lower in hot places like Delhi. On one day, the study found PM2.5 concentrations reached a staggering 160 µg/m³ (micrograms/cubic metre) at an altitude of 100m, typically the height of a 30-storey residential building. Ground monitors recorded only 100 µg/m³; WHO’s daily safe limit is 15 µg/m³. The altitude of the toxic haze shows the strength of local emissions and regional transport, Dey says. “This calls for prioritising emission reduction as the main mitigation strategy through systemic long-term measures rather than short-term emergency measures trying to filter this large volume of toxic air,” he added. The Delhi government has resorted to using hundreds of water sprinklers on trucks and buildings to subdue dust. In the past, it built ‘smog towers’, essentially outdoor air purifiers, before conceding these are ineffective. As the sun rises and the ground warms, this “lid” expands, allowing the toxic air to disperse into higher altitudes. By noon and into the early evening, the air becomes significantly clearer, with temperatures reaching 30-35°C and humidity dropping to 40-50%. What causes Delhi’s pollution peaks? Delhi air pollution during peak pollution days in mid-November. The report breaks down a list of pollutants, secondary pollutants formed as a result of primary pollutants and other factors like temperature and chemical reactions. The chemicals produced include chloride, black carbon or soot, sulphur dioxide to some extent from coal combustion, nitrogen dioxide and ozone, especially during traffic rush hour. These are emitted by burning biomass, solid fuels, waste, and from industries. An increase in the levels of chloride and black carbon are linked to the burning of biomass and solid fuel, which could be in waste as well. Tackling waste burning has often been identified by experts as a top priority to reduce the region’s air pollution. Exposure to these pollutants, particularly fine particulate matter like black carbon, is linked to severe respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, including asthma, lung cancer, and strokes. Additionally, nitrogen dioxide and ground-level ozone can significantly reduce lung function and trigger chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations. Traffic is a prime suspect A significant cause for this hovering haze is the city’s roads. The report highlights the staggering impact of vehicular pollution, noting that traffic contributes 40-50% of PM2.5 during peak hours. In areas near major traffic corridors, the drones detected high levels of “equivalent black carbon,” a particularly soot-heavy component of exhaust. This traffic-led pollution does not simply blow away. Instead, emissions from the millions of vehicles on Delhi’s roads build up overnight, trapped by the shallow boundary layer. This nocturnal build-up is further complicated by other local sources, including waste burning, industrial activities, and residential cooking. The study found that chloride, often linked to the burning of plastic and electronic waste, spiked in the early hours of the morning, acting as a chemical trigger that causes particles to grow and thicken the haze. Call for more drones To capture this data, researchers utilised a custom-designed drone platform built by an Indian start-up, BotLab Dynamics. The drone, weighing roughly 7.5 kg, was equipped with a modified low-cost sensor (LCS). The study involved 40 separate drone flights near heavy traffic corridors. However, back in March 2021, time was tight due to Covid restrictions. Now, the authors have called for more drone-based surveillance, at higher altitudes, and with better equipment. In the right conditions, tons of these pollutants can descend and threaten public health. Image Credits: Gustaf von Zeipel/ Unsplash, Chetan Bhattacharji. Posts navigation Older postsNewer posts This site uses cookies to help give you the best experience on our website. Cookies enable us to collect information that helps us personalise your experience and improve the functionality and performance of our site. By continuing to read our website, we assume you agree to this, otherwise you can adjust your browser settings. Please read our cookie and Privacy Policy. Our Cookies and Privacy Policy Loading Comments... You must be logged in to post a comment.
First Vaccines in Three Years Reach Besieged Sudanese State 03/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan A UNICEF-supported mobile clinic provides healthcare to people displaced by violence in Darfur, Sudan. The first vaccines to reach Sudan’s South Kordofan state in nearly three years were delivered this week, according to Save the Children. South Kordofan has not received any vaccines since July 2023 due to a siege by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF),which has blocked medical and humanitarian supplies. “This left thousands of children without protection from preventable disease at a time when malnutrition and displacement were putting them at heightened risk,” said Save the Children. The organisation delivered two truckloads containing 18 metric tons of routine vaccines to Kadugli town in the south-central state over the past few days. The shipment includes the tuberculosis BCG vaccine, oral polio vaccine (OPV) and pentavalent vaccine (against diphtheria, tetanus, hepatitis B, whooping cough and Hib), as well as vaccines for rotavirus, pneumococcal, measles, meningococcal A, inactivated and Yellow Fever. The vaccines, funded by Gavi, will support immunisation in five localities, including Kadugli where famine was confirmed in September 2025. Families in Al Reif Alshargi, Aldalang, Habila and Al Goos will also benefit, with more than 24,500 children set to receive routine vaccinations this year. In addition, nearly 6,000 women will receive the tetanus vaccine. “Vaccines are one of the simplest and most effective tools we have to prevent child deaths,” said Dr Bashir Kamal Eldin, Save the Children’s health and nutrition director in Sudan. “This vaccine delivery is a breakthrough for thousands of children and mothers who have endured months without reliable access to food and basic health services, conditions that have put their lives at serious risk.” However, Eldin warned that the situation remains extremely fragile: “Without sustained peace and guaranteed humanitarian access, these gains could quickly be reversed.” ‘Humanitarian catastrophe’ The World Health Organization (WHO) has described the situation in Sudan as a “humanitarian catastrophe of staggering dimensions” in its latest report on the conflict. The WHO estimates that 33,7 million people require assistance. Some 11.5 million people have been forcibly displaced, with over 4.2 million fleeing into neighbouring countries. Chad recently closed its border with Sudan as it cannot cope with the influx of refugees. “More than 21.2 million people are experiencing acute food insecurity,” said the WHO, with violence disrupting food and aid supply chains and agricultural production. Some areas, including El Fasher (North Darfur) and Kadugli (South Kordofan), are facing famine, categorised as “Integrated Phase Classification Phase 5 (IPC Phase 5)”, when over 20% of households face an extreme lack of food and over 30% of children face acute malnutrition. “The latest nutrition survey in Um Baru (North Darfur) recorded a Global Acute Malnutrition rate of 53%, of which 35% were classified as Severe Acute Malnutrition. Coupled with high rates of malnutrition, an overstretched health system and low immunisation coverage, this increases the risk of disease outbreaks and their catastrophic impacts,” said the WHO. “Multiple disease outbreaks are occurring simultaneously, including cholera, dengue, malaria, measles, hepatitis E, and diphtheria. “Over 40 000 injuries have been reported amid the ongoing conflict. Civilians continue to be killed, injured and displaced in ongoing attacks in the Darfur and Kordofan regions. Sexual violence remains pervasive.” Between 15 April 2023 and 31 December 2025, the WHO has formally validated 201 attacks on health care, 1,858 deaths and 490 injuries. “Many health facilities have been destroyed, looted, or are functioning with severe shortages of staff, medicines, vaccines, equipment, and supplies,” the WHO concludes. Image Credits: Mohammed Jamal / UNICEF. Ghana and Senegal Consider Harsher Measures Against LGBTQ People 03/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan Senegal’s President Ousmane Sonko. The Parliaments of both Ghana and Senegal are considering harsher penalties for same-sex relationships. Last month, Ghana’s Parliament had its first reading of an anti-LGBTQ Bill, which is now being considered by its Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. Meanwhile, Senegal’s Cabinet approved a Bill for its Parliament last month that will double the maximum penalty for same sex relationships – up to 10 years in prison. Ghana passed an anti-LGBTQ bill in 2024, but it was not signed into law by the country’s then-president, Nana Akufo-Addo. The current president, John Mahama, was elected in 2024 and has stated his readiness to pass anti-LGBTQ laws. Ghana’s Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill is similar to the one passed in 2024, and contains some of the most wide-ranging legal restrictions on human sexuality. First off, the Bill aims to criminalise LGBTTQAP+ people. This applies to “a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, ally, pansexual or a person of any other sexual orientation that is contrary to the sociocultural relationship between a male and a female”. Any sexual activities by LGBTTQAP+ people will get a prison sentence of between two months and three years. Meanwhile, “gross indecency” – defined as a “public show of romantic relations” or “cross-dressing” can get six to 12 months in prison. LGBTTQAP+ organisations are also banned. Ghanaians have a duty to report transgressions. The Bill also requires “parents, teachers, religious bodies, media and state institutions” to “promote and protect… human sexual rights and family values” and ensure they are “preserved and integrated into the fabric of national life.” Senegal’s Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, who also came to power in 2024, told his Parliament that the Bill will punish “acts against nature” with prison sentences from five to 10 years. US Speeds up Signing of Bilateral Health Agreements, DRC Lawyers Challenge Minerals Deal 02/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan DRC Health Minister Dr Roger Kamba, US Charge D’Affaires in DRC, Ian McCary, DRC Prime Minister Judith Tuluka Suminwa and Finance Minister Doudou Fwamba, at the signing of the health MOU last week. The United States has moved at speed to secure several new bilateral health Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) in the past week, including, for the first time, four in Latin America – with the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala and Panama. To date (2 March), the US has signed 24 bilateral health MOUs in terms of the Trump administration’s America First Global Health Strategy. Announcing its agreement with Panama, the first MOU within Latin America, the US State Department described it as “strengthening Western hemisphere health security”, which it added is “a priority”. The four Latin American agreements involve smaller grants and are almost wholly focused on disease surveillance. The other 20 bilateral agreements are all with African countries – mostly previous recipients of health grants via the now disbanded US Agency for International Development (USAID) and decimated US President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Several of these countries are facing dire shortages of medicines for HIV, tuberculosis, and maternal and child health as a result of the US withdrawal of funds. The five-year MOUs are aimed at rapidly transferring financial responsibility for these key health services to countries themselves – as some, such as Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – derived over half their HIV budgets from donors, particularly the US. In the DRC, for example, at least half the antiretroviral medication it used was covered by the US. High parting price However, the parting price for these transitional MOUs includes extensive investment in infectious disease surveillance networks. The aim is to supply the US with pathogen information within a week of any outbreak to not only “keep America safe” but to give US firms exclusive access to pathogen information, which will enable them to make vaccines, medicines and diagnostics to combat these. The US-DRC MOU, signed on 26 February, focuses extensively on “strengthening the DRC’s capacity to detect and contain infectious disease outbreaks before they spread internationally”, according to a US State Department statement. The DRC has experienced recent Ebola outbreaks and, for the past year, the biggest mpox outbreak in the world. According to the MOU, the US commits to investing up to $900 million over five years and the DRC commits to increasing its health expenditure by $300 million. The bulk of the money will go into “a national integrated surveillance and outbreak response system, including a high-quality laboratory network capable of detecting and investigating infectious disease outbreaks within seven days”. “Under this system, relevant authorities, including the United States and other partners, will coordinate epidemic preparedness and rapid response measures to contain outbreaks and prevent their spread to neighboring areas,” according to the statement. The MOU also aims to modernise data and disease surveillance systems with “enhanced electronic medical records and interoperable platforms”, professionalise community health workers and “expand integrated delivery of essential health services for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, polio, and maternal and child health”. First, the minerals… Guinea and the US signed a minerals MOU before the health MOU. The US held off signing an MOU with the DRC in terms of its “America First Global Health Strategy” on 5 December, when it signed deals with Rwanda and Kenya on the sidelines of the signing of a peace accord between Rwanda and the DRC. Instead, the US and the DRC signed a “strategic partnership agreement” to “promote secure, reliable, and mutually beneficial critical mineral flows for commercial and defense purposes”. The DRC is one of the world’s most important sources of rare earth minerals, but China has dominated the purchasing and processing of its minerals. In the past two months, the DRC has opened its rare minerals supply to the US. In late January, the DRC sent the US a shortlist of state-owned assets involving manganese, copper, cobalt, gold and lithium, for US investors to consider as part of a minerals partnership, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, the US MOU with Guinea, signed on 27 February, was also preceded by a minerals MOU, signed with the US on 5 February, giving the US access to “critical minerals”. The health MOU prioritises strengthening the country’s “laboratory networks with biosafety and biosecurity management aligned with international standards by 2027”. Legal backlash in DRC But not all countries want to exchange their minerals and other assets for aid. A group of lawyers in the DRC are challenging the minerals MOU in their Constitutional Court, arguing that it violates the country’s Constitution in various ways, including undermining national sovereignty over natural resources. “By filing this case with the Constitutional Court, we are assuming our responsibility as Congolese citizens to protect the sovereignty of our country and safeguard our patrimony for future generations,” said attorney Jean-Marie Kalonji, one of the plaintiffs. The case has yet to be heard. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe recently backed out of talks with the US as it was unhappy with what the US required from it in terms of outbreaks. “Zimbabwe was being asked to share its biological resources and data over an extended period, with no corresponding guarantee of access to any medical innovations—such as vaccines, diagnostics, or treatments—that might result from that shared data,” explained Nick Mangwana, Secretary for Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services. “In essence, our nation would provide the raw materials for scientific discovery without any assurance that the end products would be accessible to our people should a future health crisis emerge. The United States, meanwhile, was not offering reciprocal sharing of its own epidemiological data with our health authorities.” Kenya’s MOU with the US, the first of the series, has been halted by the country’s High Court as it faces two separate court challenges for giving the US access to patient data and pathogen information. The government of Zambia acknowledged last week that it is unhappy with part of a proposed health aid deal with the United States that “does not align with the country’s interests” and has requested “revisions” to the MOU. The Zambia-US bilateral health deal was due to be signed last December, but it faltered after the US linked the billion-dollar deal to access to Zambian minerals, particularly copper and cobalt. Just four days before the MOU was due to be signed, the US announced that the two countries had committed to a plan to unlock “a substantial grant package of US support in exchange for collaboration in the mining sector and clear business sector reforms that will drive economic growth and commercial investment that benefit both the United States and Zambia”. ‘Extractive’ policy Sophie Harman, professor of international politics at Queen Mary University of London, argues in last week’s BMJ that “extraction is the core principle of US President Donald Trump’s America First global health policy”. “The current US administration does not aim to improve health worldwide, instead it intends to make US companies richer and facilitate ‘leveraging US global health leadership to compete with China’,” writes Harman. “Entering a deal with the US government is a potential lose-lose for states. These countries risk losing resources and opportunities for wealth creation in their own countries, threatening alliances with China for relatively small advances in health, and creating political turmoil in domestic courts.” Europe is Failing to Curb Tobacco Use – Especially in Women 28/02/2026 Kerry Cullinan Smoking prevalence is higher amongst European women than anywhere else in the world. Europe is failing to curb tobacco use – particularly in women and girls – and will have the world’s highest prevalence by 2030, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) European region revealed this week. Of the region’s 53 states, tobacco use is highest in Serbia, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Montenegro – all exceeding 30% prevalence in people over the age of 14. The global average for tobacco use in people aged 15 and over is 19.5%, while in the WHO European Region it is 24.1%. The rate of female smokers is the highest in the world at 17.3% – or one in five women. This is almost double the prevalence of the next highest region, 9.1% in the Americas. Europe is the only WHO region not expected to meet the global target of a 30% reduction in tobacco use among women by 2025. It is currently projected to achieve only a 12% reduction between 2010 and 2025. “The 62 million female smokers in the European Region represent over 40% of the 143 million female smokers in the world,” according to the WHO, which released 10 new factsheets on tobacco consumption this week. “European girls aged 13 to 15 now have the highest tobacco use rates among their age group anywhere in the world,” continued Kluge. “That is not an accident, it’s the result of deliberate industry strategy targeting young people with flavoured products and sophisticated social media marketing. “Countries like Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands are proving it is possible to push back – by regulating novel products, banning flavours and restricting advertising. Every country in this region should be doing the same, to protect future generations.” Slow decreases While Europe’s tobacco consumption is decreasing, it is happening fairly slowly. In 2000, 47,5% of European men used tobacco, and by 2025 this was 30,3%. In women, tobacco use decreased from 22,3% in 2000 to 17,3% in 2025. “Tobacco use already causes over 1.1 million deaths from noncommunicable diseases in the European Region each year – and without accelerated action, we will stay the worst-performing region in the world by 2030,” said Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe. “We have a responsibility to change course now: to shield young people from nicotine addiction, prevent industry interference in health policy, and enforce the regulations that will prevent a lifetime of avoidable harm.” Uneven use of taxes Tax increases are being applied in some European countries – and in 28 countries, taxes represented more than 75% of the retail price of the most popular brand of cigarettes in 2024 – an increase from 16 countries in 2008. Twelve countries have increased prices since 2014, including Belgium, Czechia, Finland, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, North Macedonia, Slovakia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Uzbekistan. But cigarettes have become more affordable in 19 countries – up from just nine in 2022 – which may lead to higher smoking initiation, the WHO warned. Cigarettes are cheapest in Belarus, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan, and most expensive in Turkmenistan, Ireland, the UK and France. Uneven regulation Regulating e-cigarettes is uneven across the region. The region has the second-highest e-cigarette use prevalence in the world, with an estimated 31.4 million users, and regulation of e-cigarettes is fragmented. “Decades of progress are at risk unless policies keep pace with a rapidly evolving nicotine landscape,” said Kristina Mauer-Stender, Regional Adviser for Tobacco Control at WHO/Europe. “Applying the same strong tobacco control tools to new and emerging products is essential if we want to protect young people and sustain public health gains.” The fact sheets show that, while most countries in the region have strong tobacco monitoring systems and require large health warnings on packaging, implementation is uneven across other measures. Only 18 countries have comprehensive smoke-free laws covering all public spaces. Just 12 provide national quit lines and cover the cost of cessation services. Comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising and promotion exist in only 13 countries. Image Credits: Zaya Odeesho/ Unsplash, pixabay. WHO Updates Flu Vaccine in Response to Rapid Spread of New Variant 27/02/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen Dr Maria Van Kerkhove (2nd left) , Dr Wenqing Zhang, Dr Richard Webby and Prof Nicola Lewis present the WHO recommendation for the seasonal flu vaccine composition. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced its updated recommendations for the 2026-2027 Northern Hemisphere seasonal flu vaccine on Friday, a critical adjustment driven by the rapid global dominance of a new A(H3N2) variant known as subclade K. Following four days of intense consultation by the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS), experts finalized the flu vaccine composition to ensure it matches circulating threats. While announcing these seasonal updates at a press conference on Friday, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s Director ad interim for Epidemic and Pandemic Management, pointed to the broader danger of respiratory viruses, warning that “the threat of an influenza pandemic is real and everpresent”. She emphasized the critical need for flu vaccination to protect against severe disease and death. There are around a billion cases of seasonal influenza annually, including three to five million cases of severe illness. It causes an estimated 290,000 to 650,000 respiratory deaths annually, according to the WHO. Updated flu vaccine in response to rapid rise of new variant ‘subclade K’ A series of frequency charts illustrate the global dominance of the A(H3N2) subclade K variant. Since its sudden emergence in July and August of 2025, subclade K (scientifically classified as J.2.4.1) has rapidly spread globally, shifting the baseline of flu activity and replacing earlier dominant strains. This variant now accounts for the majority of influenza viruses reported across multiple regions. To react to this development, WHO issued two recommendations: Egg-based flu vaccines for the upcoming season include an A/Missouri/11/2025 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus, an A/Darwin/1454/2025 (H3N2)-like virus, and a B/Tokyo/EIS13-175/2025 (B/Victoria lineage)-like virus. Cell-based flu vaccines will similarly target the Missouri and Darwin strains, alongside a B/Pennsylvania/14/2025-like virus. Notably, the B/Yamagata lineage remains excluded from the formula, as no cases of this lineage have been documented since March 2020. Shifting flu seasons across hemispheres Prof Nicola Lewis highlighted prolonged influenza activity in the Southern Hemisphere (right). The unchecked spread of subclade K has significantly altered the traditional flu calendar. According to Professor Nicola Lewis, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre at the Francis Crick Institute in London, the Southern Hemisphere experienced complex disease dynamics. While the season began with H1 dominance, the sudden arrival of H3 subclade K extended the flu’s impact considerably in countries like Australia, she explained in a briefing on Friday. New Flu Strain Sweeping Europe Says WHO; but Vaccines Remain Effective, ECDC Finds Consequently, the virus’s spread caused the Northern Hemisphere to experience an unusually early start to its own influenza season, with countries such as the United Kingdom and Japan recording surges weeks ahead of historical averages. Zoonotic threats and pandemic preparedness Dr Richard Webby noted that while zoonotic threats primarily impact animal populations, the WHO remains on high alert for potential human infections. Beyond seasonal strains, health authorities remain on high alert regarding the dangers of avian and swine influenza. Globally, A(H5) viruses maintain a robust presence in bird populations across almost all regions except Oceania. Notably, spillover events into humans have recently included atypical subtypes like A(H5N2) in Mexico and A(H5N5) in the United States, causing disease ranging from moderate to fatal. Since September 2025, 25 human infections involving zoonotic influenza have been reported across six countries, primarily linked to direct animal exposure without evidence of human-to-human transmission. Fourteen of these cases involved H9N2 infections detected in China, noted Dr Richard Webby, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, USA. In response to slight evolutionary changes in these animal viruses, WHO is proactively recommending the development of an updated Candidate Vaccine Virus (CVV) for avian influenza A(H9N2) to ensure global pandemic preparedness is not caught off guard. Prioritizing vaccination and combatting misinformation Van Kerkhove highlighted that safe and effective vaccines remain the primary defense. With a highly transmissible strain circulating, experts reiterate that safe and effective flu vaccines remain the primary defense, particularly for vulnerable populations and healthcare workers. However, WHO is not ignoring public hesitancy. Van Kerkhove emphasized that global health leaders must actively listen to communities and take their concerns seriously. “We are listening to people. There are legitimate questions that need to be answered,” she affirmed, noting that WHO is collaborating with community and faith-based leaders to combat willful misinformation campaigns and empower individuals to make informed health decisions. Image Credits: Felix Sassmannshausen. Drone Busts Delhi’s Spring Clean Air Myth 27/02/2026 Chetan Bhattacharji Drone footage dispels the myth the Delhi’s air pollution improves in spring. NEW DELHI – For years, residents of the Indian capital have looked to the skies in March with a sense of relief, believing that the notorious winter pollution had finally retreated. However, a drone armed with an air quality monitor has shattered this perception, revealing a massive blanket of toxic air hovering just above the city’s skyline. This vertical pollution acts like a pollution lid over the capital. It also contains unexpectedly high concentrations of dangerous particles that ground-level monitors often fail to capture. Dark surprise in the spring sky The study indicates the vast scale of Delhi’s pollution. One of the authors, Prof Sagnik Dey of theIndian Institute of Technology (ITT) Delhi, estimates this to be roughly 240,000 kgs, equivalent to some 1,200 oil drums. “Taking Delhi, 30 km by 40 km, and considering PM2.5 up to 1 km, we are talking 1200 km3 volume of air,” Dey told Health Policy Watch. “When PM2.5 is 200 ug/m3 on a day, we are talking about 2,40,000 kg of particles to be cleaned out.” Another surprise is that this smog blanket occurred in mid-March when climatic conditions, including and temperature, favour the dispersal of pollution, unlike in winter. The study was conducted by a team at IIT Delhi, from its South Delhi campus between 11-23 March, 2021. The research, published in Nature this month, shows that while the air at street level might seem manageable, the atmosphere 100 metres above the ground was 60% more toxic. The new findings raise questions about how much of Delhi’s air crisis is driven by local sources and why current emergency measures are failing to clear the sky. There is a lot of complex chemistry at work, churning out the lethal cocktail of pollutants. The ingredients and level of pollution change depending on whether it is morning, noon, evening or night. The authors – numbering 20 from institutions in nine countries ranging from the UK to China – say that the study provides enough impetus to study the pollution above the city more deeply, using drones, to improve models and policy action to reduce air pollution. Toxic mornings The most dangerous window for residents is between 5am and 8am, when a “suppressed planetary boundary layer” acts like a physical ceiling below 200 metres altitude, trapping pollutants near the surface thanks to factors like cooler air, low/no wind, and humidity levels. The planetary boundary layer (PBL) can be as low as 50m and as high as a couple of thousand, depending on the temperature, time of day or year, and other factors. Usually, the higher the PBL, the lower the concentration of pollutants at ground level, which is why in summer the level of particulate matter tends to be lower in hot places like Delhi. On one day, the study found PM2.5 concentrations reached a staggering 160 µg/m³ (micrograms/cubic metre) at an altitude of 100m, typically the height of a 30-storey residential building. Ground monitors recorded only 100 µg/m³; WHO’s daily safe limit is 15 µg/m³. The altitude of the toxic haze shows the strength of local emissions and regional transport, Dey says. “This calls for prioritising emission reduction as the main mitigation strategy through systemic long-term measures rather than short-term emergency measures trying to filter this large volume of toxic air,” he added. The Delhi government has resorted to using hundreds of water sprinklers on trucks and buildings to subdue dust. In the past, it built ‘smog towers’, essentially outdoor air purifiers, before conceding these are ineffective. As the sun rises and the ground warms, this “lid” expands, allowing the toxic air to disperse into higher altitudes. By noon and into the early evening, the air becomes significantly clearer, with temperatures reaching 30-35°C and humidity dropping to 40-50%. What causes Delhi’s pollution peaks? Delhi air pollution during peak pollution days in mid-November. The report breaks down a list of pollutants, secondary pollutants formed as a result of primary pollutants and other factors like temperature and chemical reactions. The chemicals produced include chloride, black carbon or soot, sulphur dioxide to some extent from coal combustion, nitrogen dioxide and ozone, especially during traffic rush hour. These are emitted by burning biomass, solid fuels, waste, and from industries. An increase in the levels of chloride and black carbon are linked to the burning of biomass and solid fuel, which could be in waste as well. Tackling waste burning has often been identified by experts as a top priority to reduce the region’s air pollution. Exposure to these pollutants, particularly fine particulate matter like black carbon, is linked to severe respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, including asthma, lung cancer, and strokes. Additionally, nitrogen dioxide and ground-level ozone can significantly reduce lung function and trigger chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations. Traffic is a prime suspect A significant cause for this hovering haze is the city’s roads. The report highlights the staggering impact of vehicular pollution, noting that traffic contributes 40-50% of PM2.5 during peak hours. In areas near major traffic corridors, the drones detected high levels of “equivalent black carbon,” a particularly soot-heavy component of exhaust. This traffic-led pollution does not simply blow away. Instead, emissions from the millions of vehicles on Delhi’s roads build up overnight, trapped by the shallow boundary layer. This nocturnal build-up is further complicated by other local sources, including waste burning, industrial activities, and residential cooking. The study found that chloride, often linked to the burning of plastic and electronic waste, spiked in the early hours of the morning, acting as a chemical trigger that causes particles to grow and thicken the haze. Call for more drones To capture this data, researchers utilised a custom-designed drone platform built by an Indian start-up, BotLab Dynamics. The drone, weighing roughly 7.5 kg, was equipped with a modified low-cost sensor (LCS). The study involved 40 separate drone flights near heavy traffic corridors. However, back in March 2021, time was tight due to Covid restrictions. Now, the authors have called for more drone-based surveillance, at higher altitudes, and with better equipment. In the right conditions, tons of these pollutants can descend and threaten public health. Image Credits: Gustaf von Zeipel/ Unsplash, Chetan Bhattacharji. Posts navigation Older postsNewer posts This site uses cookies to help give you the best experience on our website. Cookies enable us to collect information that helps us personalise your experience and improve the functionality and performance of our site. By continuing to read our website, we assume you agree to this, otherwise you can adjust your browser settings. Please read our cookie and Privacy Policy. Our Cookies and Privacy Policy Loading Comments... You must be logged in to post a comment.
Ghana and Senegal Consider Harsher Measures Against LGBTQ People 03/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan Senegal’s President Ousmane Sonko. The Parliaments of both Ghana and Senegal are considering harsher penalties for same-sex relationships. Last month, Ghana’s Parliament had its first reading of an anti-LGBTQ Bill, which is now being considered by its Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. Meanwhile, Senegal’s Cabinet approved a Bill for its Parliament last month that will double the maximum penalty for same sex relationships – up to 10 years in prison. Ghana passed an anti-LGBTQ bill in 2024, but it was not signed into law by the country’s then-president, Nana Akufo-Addo. The current president, John Mahama, was elected in 2024 and has stated his readiness to pass anti-LGBTQ laws. Ghana’s Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill is similar to the one passed in 2024, and contains some of the most wide-ranging legal restrictions on human sexuality. First off, the Bill aims to criminalise LGBTTQAP+ people. This applies to “a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, ally, pansexual or a person of any other sexual orientation that is contrary to the sociocultural relationship between a male and a female”. Any sexual activities by LGBTTQAP+ people will get a prison sentence of between two months and three years. Meanwhile, “gross indecency” – defined as a “public show of romantic relations” or “cross-dressing” can get six to 12 months in prison. LGBTTQAP+ organisations are also banned. Ghanaians have a duty to report transgressions. The Bill also requires “parents, teachers, religious bodies, media and state institutions” to “promote and protect… human sexual rights and family values” and ensure they are “preserved and integrated into the fabric of national life.” Senegal’s Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, who also came to power in 2024, told his Parliament that the Bill will punish “acts against nature” with prison sentences from five to 10 years. US Speeds up Signing of Bilateral Health Agreements, DRC Lawyers Challenge Minerals Deal 02/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan DRC Health Minister Dr Roger Kamba, US Charge D’Affaires in DRC, Ian McCary, DRC Prime Minister Judith Tuluka Suminwa and Finance Minister Doudou Fwamba, at the signing of the health MOU last week. The United States has moved at speed to secure several new bilateral health Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) in the past week, including, for the first time, four in Latin America – with the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala and Panama. To date (2 March), the US has signed 24 bilateral health MOUs in terms of the Trump administration’s America First Global Health Strategy. Announcing its agreement with Panama, the first MOU within Latin America, the US State Department described it as “strengthening Western hemisphere health security”, which it added is “a priority”. The four Latin American agreements involve smaller grants and are almost wholly focused on disease surveillance. The other 20 bilateral agreements are all with African countries – mostly previous recipients of health grants via the now disbanded US Agency for International Development (USAID) and decimated US President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Several of these countries are facing dire shortages of medicines for HIV, tuberculosis, and maternal and child health as a result of the US withdrawal of funds. The five-year MOUs are aimed at rapidly transferring financial responsibility for these key health services to countries themselves – as some, such as Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – derived over half their HIV budgets from donors, particularly the US. In the DRC, for example, at least half the antiretroviral medication it used was covered by the US. High parting price However, the parting price for these transitional MOUs includes extensive investment in infectious disease surveillance networks. The aim is to supply the US with pathogen information within a week of any outbreak to not only “keep America safe” but to give US firms exclusive access to pathogen information, which will enable them to make vaccines, medicines and diagnostics to combat these. The US-DRC MOU, signed on 26 February, focuses extensively on “strengthening the DRC’s capacity to detect and contain infectious disease outbreaks before they spread internationally”, according to a US State Department statement. The DRC has experienced recent Ebola outbreaks and, for the past year, the biggest mpox outbreak in the world. According to the MOU, the US commits to investing up to $900 million over five years and the DRC commits to increasing its health expenditure by $300 million. The bulk of the money will go into “a national integrated surveillance and outbreak response system, including a high-quality laboratory network capable of detecting and investigating infectious disease outbreaks within seven days”. “Under this system, relevant authorities, including the United States and other partners, will coordinate epidemic preparedness and rapid response measures to contain outbreaks and prevent their spread to neighboring areas,” according to the statement. The MOU also aims to modernise data and disease surveillance systems with “enhanced electronic medical records and interoperable platforms”, professionalise community health workers and “expand integrated delivery of essential health services for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, polio, and maternal and child health”. First, the minerals… Guinea and the US signed a minerals MOU before the health MOU. The US held off signing an MOU with the DRC in terms of its “America First Global Health Strategy” on 5 December, when it signed deals with Rwanda and Kenya on the sidelines of the signing of a peace accord between Rwanda and the DRC. Instead, the US and the DRC signed a “strategic partnership agreement” to “promote secure, reliable, and mutually beneficial critical mineral flows for commercial and defense purposes”. The DRC is one of the world’s most important sources of rare earth minerals, but China has dominated the purchasing and processing of its minerals. In the past two months, the DRC has opened its rare minerals supply to the US. In late January, the DRC sent the US a shortlist of state-owned assets involving manganese, copper, cobalt, gold and lithium, for US investors to consider as part of a minerals partnership, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, the US MOU with Guinea, signed on 27 February, was also preceded by a minerals MOU, signed with the US on 5 February, giving the US access to “critical minerals”. The health MOU prioritises strengthening the country’s “laboratory networks with biosafety and biosecurity management aligned with international standards by 2027”. Legal backlash in DRC But not all countries want to exchange their minerals and other assets for aid. A group of lawyers in the DRC are challenging the minerals MOU in their Constitutional Court, arguing that it violates the country’s Constitution in various ways, including undermining national sovereignty over natural resources. “By filing this case with the Constitutional Court, we are assuming our responsibility as Congolese citizens to protect the sovereignty of our country and safeguard our patrimony for future generations,” said attorney Jean-Marie Kalonji, one of the plaintiffs. The case has yet to be heard. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe recently backed out of talks with the US as it was unhappy with what the US required from it in terms of outbreaks. “Zimbabwe was being asked to share its biological resources and data over an extended period, with no corresponding guarantee of access to any medical innovations—such as vaccines, diagnostics, or treatments—that might result from that shared data,” explained Nick Mangwana, Secretary for Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services. “In essence, our nation would provide the raw materials for scientific discovery without any assurance that the end products would be accessible to our people should a future health crisis emerge. The United States, meanwhile, was not offering reciprocal sharing of its own epidemiological data with our health authorities.” Kenya’s MOU with the US, the first of the series, has been halted by the country’s High Court as it faces two separate court challenges for giving the US access to patient data and pathogen information. The government of Zambia acknowledged last week that it is unhappy with part of a proposed health aid deal with the United States that “does not align with the country’s interests” and has requested “revisions” to the MOU. The Zambia-US bilateral health deal was due to be signed last December, but it faltered after the US linked the billion-dollar deal to access to Zambian minerals, particularly copper and cobalt. Just four days before the MOU was due to be signed, the US announced that the two countries had committed to a plan to unlock “a substantial grant package of US support in exchange for collaboration in the mining sector and clear business sector reforms that will drive economic growth and commercial investment that benefit both the United States and Zambia”. ‘Extractive’ policy Sophie Harman, professor of international politics at Queen Mary University of London, argues in last week’s BMJ that “extraction is the core principle of US President Donald Trump’s America First global health policy”. “The current US administration does not aim to improve health worldwide, instead it intends to make US companies richer and facilitate ‘leveraging US global health leadership to compete with China’,” writes Harman. “Entering a deal with the US government is a potential lose-lose for states. These countries risk losing resources and opportunities for wealth creation in their own countries, threatening alliances with China for relatively small advances in health, and creating political turmoil in domestic courts.” Europe is Failing to Curb Tobacco Use – Especially in Women 28/02/2026 Kerry Cullinan Smoking prevalence is higher amongst European women than anywhere else in the world. Europe is failing to curb tobacco use – particularly in women and girls – and will have the world’s highest prevalence by 2030, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) European region revealed this week. Of the region’s 53 states, tobacco use is highest in Serbia, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Montenegro – all exceeding 30% prevalence in people over the age of 14. The global average for tobacco use in people aged 15 and over is 19.5%, while in the WHO European Region it is 24.1%. The rate of female smokers is the highest in the world at 17.3% – or one in five women. This is almost double the prevalence of the next highest region, 9.1% in the Americas. Europe is the only WHO region not expected to meet the global target of a 30% reduction in tobacco use among women by 2025. It is currently projected to achieve only a 12% reduction between 2010 and 2025. “The 62 million female smokers in the European Region represent over 40% of the 143 million female smokers in the world,” according to the WHO, which released 10 new factsheets on tobacco consumption this week. “European girls aged 13 to 15 now have the highest tobacco use rates among their age group anywhere in the world,” continued Kluge. “That is not an accident, it’s the result of deliberate industry strategy targeting young people with flavoured products and sophisticated social media marketing. “Countries like Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands are proving it is possible to push back – by regulating novel products, banning flavours and restricting advertising. Every country in this region should be doing the same, to protect future generations.” Slow decreases While Europe’s tobacco consumption is decreasing, it is happening fairly slowly. In 2000, 47,5% of European men used tobacco, and by 2025 this was 30,3%. In women, tobacco use decreased from 22,3% in 2000 to 17,3% in 2025. “Tobacco use already causes over 1.1 million deaths from noncommunicable diseases in the European Region each year – and without accelerated action, we will stay the worst-performing region in the world by 2030,” said Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe. “We have a responsibility to change course now: to shield young people from nicotine addiction, prevent industry interference in health policy, and enforce the regulations that will prevent a lifetime of avoidable harm.” Uneven use of taxes Tax increases are being applied in some European countries – and in 28 countries, taxes represented more than 75% of the retail price of the most popular brand of cigarettes in 2024 – an increase from 16 countries in 2008. Twelve countries have increased prices since 2014, including Belgium, Czechia, Finland, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, North Macedonia, Slovakia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Uzbekistan. But cigarettes have become more affordable in 19 countries – up from just nine in 2022 – which may lead to higher smoking initiation, the WHO warned. Cigarettes are cheapest in Belarus, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan, and most expensive in Turkmenistan, Ireland, the UK and France. Uneven regulation Regulating e-cigarettes is uneven across the region. The region has the second-highest e-cigarette use prevalence in the world, with an estimated 31.4 million users, and regulation of e-cigarettes is fragmented. “Decades of progress are at risk unless policies keep pace with a rapidly evolving nicotine landscape,” said Kristina Mauer-Stender, Regional Adviser for Tobacco Control at WHO/Europe. “Applying the same strong tobacco control tools to new and emerging products is essential if we want to protect young people and sustain public health gains.” The fact sheets show that, while most countries in the region have strong tobacco monitoring systems and require large health warnings on packaging, implementation is uneven across other measures. Only 18 countries have comprehensive smoke-free laws covering all public spaces. Just 12 provide national quit lines and cover the cost of cessation services. Comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising and promotion exist in only 13 countries. Image Credits: Zaya Odeesho/ Unsplash, pixabay. WHO Updates Flu Vaccine in Response to Rapid Spread of New Variant 27/02/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen Dr Maria Van Kerkhove (2nd left) , Dr Wenqing Zhang, Dr Richard Webby and Prof Nicola Lewis present the WHO recommendation for the seasonal flu vaccine composition. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced its updated recommendations for the 2026-2027 Northern Hemisphere seasonal flu vaccine on Friday, a critical adjustment driven by the rapid global dominance of a new A(H3N2) variant known as subclade K. Following four days of intense consultation by the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS), experts finalized the flu vaccine composition to ensure it matches circulating threats. While announcing these seasonal updates at a press conference on Friday, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s Director ad interim for Epidemic and Pandemic Management, pointed to the broader danger of respiratory viruses, warning that “the threat of an influenza pandemic is real and everpresent”. She emphasized the critical need for flu vaccination to protect against severe disease and death. There are around a billion cases of seasonal influenza annually, including three to five million cases of severe illness. It causes an estimated 290,000 to 650,000 respiratory deaths annually, according to the WHO. Updated flu vaccine in response to rapid rise of new variant ‘subclade K’ A series of frequency charts illustrate the global dominance of the A(H3N2) subclade K variant. Since its sudden emergence in July and August of 2025, subclade K (scientifically classified as J.2.4.1) has rapidly spread globally, shifting the baseline of flu activity and replacing earlier dominant strains. This variant now accounts for the majority of influenza viruses reported across multiple regions. To react to this development, WHO issued two recommendations: Egg-based flu vaccines for the upcoming season include an A/Missouri/11/2025 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus, an A/Darwin/1454/2025 (H3N2)-like virus, and a B/Tokyo/EIS13-175/2025 (B/Victoria lineage)-like virus. Cell-based flu vaccines will similarly target the Missouri and Darwin strains, alongside a B/Pennsylvania/14/2025-like virus. Notably, the B/Yamagata lineage remains excluded from the formula, as no cases of this lineage have been documented since March 2020. Shifting flu seasons across hemispheres Prof Nicola Lewis highlighted prolonged influenza activity in the Southern Hemisphere (right). The unchecked spread of subclade K has significantly altered the traditional flu calendar. According to Professor Nicola Lewis, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre at the Francis Crick Institute in London, the Southern Hemisphere experienced complex disease dynamics. While the season began with H1 dominance, the sudden arrival of H3 subclade K extended the flu’s impact considerably in countries like Australia, she explained in a briefing on Friday. New Flu Strain Sweeping Europe Says WHO; but Vaccines Remain Effective, ECDC Finds Consequently, the virus’s spread caused the Northern Hemisphere to experience an unusually early start to its own influenza season, with countries such as the United Kingdom and Japan recording surges weeks ahead of historical averages. Zoonotic threats and pandemic preparedness Dr Richard Webby noted that while zoonotic threats primarily impact animal populations, the WHO remains on high alert for potential human infections. Beyond seasonal strains, health authorities remain on high alert regarding the dangers of avian and swine influenza. Globally, A(H5) viruses maintain a robust presence in bird populations across almost all regions except Oceania. Notably, spillover events into humans have recently included atypical subtypes like A(H5N2) in Mexico and A(H5N5) in the United States, causing disease ranging from moderate to fatal. Since September 2025, 25 human infections involving zoonotic influenza have been reported across six countries, primarily linked to direct animal exposure without evidence of human-to-human transmission. Fourteen of these cases involved H9N2 infections detected in China, noted Dr Richard Webby, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, USA. In response to slight evolutionary changes in these animal viruses, WHO is proactively recommending the development of an updated Candidate Vaccine Virus (CVV) for avian influenza A(H9N2) to ensure global pandemic preparedness is not caught off guard. Prioritizing vaccination and combatting misinformation Van Kerkhove highlighted that safe and effective vaccines remain the primary defense. With a highly transmissible strain circulating, experts reiterate that safe and effective flu vaccines remain the primary defense, particularly for vulnerable populations and healthcare workers. However, WHO is not ignoring public hesitancy. Van Kerkhove emphasized that global health leaders must actively listen to communities and take their concerns seriously. “We are listening to people. There are legitimate questions that need to be answered,” she affirmed, noting that WHO is collaborating with community and faith-based leaders to combat willful misinformation campaigns and empower individuals to make informed health decisions. Image Credits: Felix Sassmannshausen. Drone Busts Delhi’s Spring Clean Air Myth 27/02/2026 Chetan Bhattacharji Drone footage dispels the myth the Delhi’s air pollution improves in spring. NEW DELHI – For years, residents of the Indian capital have looked to the skies in March with a sense of relief, believing that the notorious winter pollution had finally retreated. However, a drone armed with an air quality monitor has shattered this perception, revealing a massive blanket of toxic air hovering just above the city’s skyline. This vertical pollution acts like a pollution lid over the capital. It also contains unexpectedly high concentrations of dangerous particles that ground-level monitors often fail to capture. Dark surprise in the spring sky The study indicates the vast scale of Delhi’s pollution. One of the authors, Prof Sagnik Dey of theIndian Institute of Technology (ITT) Delhi, estimates this to be roughly 240,000 kgs, equivalent to some 1,200 oil drums. “Taking Delhi, 30 km by 40 km, and considering PM2.5 up to 1 km, we are talking 1200 km3 volume of air,” Dey told Health Policy Watch. “When PM2.5 is 200 ug/m3 on a day, we are talking about 2,40,000 kg of particles to be cleaned out.” Another surprise is that this smog blanket occurred in mid-March when climatic conditions, including and temperature, favour the dispersal of pollution, unlike in winter. The study was conducted by a team at IIT Delhi, from its South Delhi campus between 11-23 March, 2021. The research, published in Nature this month, shows that while the air at street level might seem manageable, the atmosphere 100 metres above the ground was 60% more toxic. The new findings raise questions about how much of Delhi’s air crisis is driven by local sources and why current emergency measures are failing to clear the sky. There is a lot of complex chemistry at work, churning out the lethal cocktail of pollutants. The ingredients and level of pollution change depending on whether it is morning, noon, evening or night. The authors – numbering 20 from institutions in nine countries ranging from the UK to China – say that the study provides enough impetus to study the pollution above the city more deeply, using drones, to improve models and policy action to reduce air pollution. Toxic mornings The most dangerous window for residents is between 5am and 8am, when a “suppressed planetary boundary layer” acts like a physical ceiling below 200 metres altitude, trapping pollutants near the surface thanks to factors like cooler air, low/no wind, and humidity levels. The planetary boundary layer (PBL) can be as low as 50m and as high as a couple of thousand, depending on the temperature, time of day or year, and other factors. Usually, the higher the PBL, the lower the concentration of pollutants at ground level, which is why in summer the level of particulate matter tends to be lower in hot places like Delhi. On one day, the study found PM2.5 concentrations reached a staggering 160 µg/m³ (micrograms/cubic metre) at an altitude of 100m, typically the height of a 30-storey residential building. Ground monitors recorded only 100 µg/m³; WHO’s daily safe limit is 15 µg/m³. The altitude of the toxic haze shows the strength of local emissions and regional transport, Dey says. “This calls for prioritising emission reduction as the main mitigation strategy through systemic long-term measures rather than short-term emergency measures trying to filter this large volume of toxic air,” he added. The Delhi government has resorted to using hundreds of water sprinklers on trucks and buildings to subdue dust. In the past, it built ‘smog towers’, essentially outdoor air purifiers, before conceding these are ineffective. As the sun rises and the ground warms, this “lid” expands, allowing the toxic air to disperse into higher altitudes. By noon and into the early evening, the air becomes significantly clearer, with temperatures reaching 30-35°C and humidity dropping to 40-50%. What causes Delhi’s pollution peaks? Delhi air pollution during peak pollution days in mid-November. The report breaks down a list of pollutants, secondary pollutants formed as a result of primary pollutants and other factors like temperature and chemical reactions. The chemicals produced include chloride, black carbon or soot, sulphur dioxide to some extent from coal combustion, nitrogen dioxide and ozone, especially during traffic rush hour. These are emitted by burning biomass, solid fuels, waste, and from industries. An increase in the levels of chloride and black carbon are linked to the burning of biomass and solid fuel, which could be in waste as well. Tackling waste burning has often been identified by experts as a top priority to reduce the region’s air pollution. Exposure to these pollutants, particularly fine particulate matter like black carbon, is linked to severe respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, including asthma, lung cancer, and strokes. Additionally, nitrogen dioxide and ground-level ozone can significantly reduce lung function and trigger chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations. Traffic is a prime suspect A significant cause for this hovering haze is the city’s roads. The report highlights the staggering impact of vehicular pollution, noting that traffic contributes 40-50% of PM2.5 during peak hours. In areas near major traffic corridors, the drones detected high levels of “equivalent black carbon,” a particularly soot-heavy component of exhaust. This traffic-led pollution does not simply blow away. Instead, emissions from the millions of vehicles on Delhi’s roads build up overnight, trapped by the shallow boundary layer. This nocturnal build-up is further complicated by other local sources, including waste burning, industrial activities, and residential cooking. The study found that chloride, often linked to the burning of plastic and electronic waste, spiked in the early hours of the morning, acting as a chemical trigger that causes particles to grow and thicken the haze. Call for more drones To capture this data, researchers utilised a custom-designed drone platform built by an Indian start-up, BotLab Dynamics. The drone, weighing roughly 7.5 kg, was equipped with a modified low-cost sensor (LCS). The study involved 40 separate drone flights near heavy traffic corridors. However, back in March 2021, time was tight due to Covid restrictions. Now, the authors have called for more drone-based surveillance, at higher altitudes, and with better equipment. In the right conditions, tons of these pollutants can descend and threaten public health. Image Credits: Gustaf von Zeipel/ Unsplash, Chetan Bhattacharji. Posts navigation Older postsNewer posts This site uses cookies to help give you the best experience on our website. Cookies enable us to collect information that helps us personalise your experience and improve the functionality and performance of our site. By continuing to read our website, we assume you agree to this, otherwise you can adjust your browser settings. Please read our cookie and Privacy Policy. Our Cookies and Privacy Policy Loading Comments... You must be logged in to post a comment.
US Speeds up Signing of Bilateral Health Agreements, DRC Lawyers Challenge Minerals Deal 02/03/2026 Kerry Cullinan DRC Health Minister Dr Roger Kamba, US Charge D’Affaires in DRC, Ian McCary, DRC Prime Minister Judith Tuluka Suminwa and Finance Minister Doudou Fwamba, at the signing of the health MOU last week. The United States has moved at speed to secure several new bilateral health Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) in the past week, including, for the first time, four in Latin America – with the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala and Panama. To date (2 March), the US has signed 24 bilateral health MOUs in terms of the Trump administration’s America First Global Health Strategy. Announcing its agreement with Panama, the first MOU within Latin America, the US State Department described it as “strengthening Western hemisphere health security”, which it added is “a priority”. The four Latin American agreements involve smaller grants and are almost wholly focused on disease surveillance. The other 20 bilateral agreements are all with African countries – mostly previous recipients of health grants via the now disbanded US Agency for International Development (USAID) and decimated US President’s Emergency Fund for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Several of these countries are facing dire shortages of medicines for HIV, tuberculosis, and maternal and child health as a result of the US withdrawal of funds. The five-year MOUs are aimed at rapidly transferring financial responsibility for these key health services to countries themselves – as some, such as Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – derived over half their HIV budgets from donors, particularly the US. In the DRC, for example, at least half the antiretroviral medication it used was covered by the US. High parting price However, the parting price for these transitional MOUs includes extensive investment in infectious disease surveillance networks. The aim is to supply the US with pathogen information within a week of any outbreak to not only “keep America safe” but to give US firms exclusive access to pathogen information, which will enable them to make vaccines, medicines and diagnostics to combat these. The US-DRC MOU, signed on 26 February, focuses extensively on “strengthening the DRC’s capacity to detect and contain infectious disease outbreaks before they spread internationally”, according to a US State Department statement. The DRC has experienced recent Ebola outbreaks and, for the past year, the biggest mpox outbreak in the world. According to the MOU, the US commits to investing up to $900 million over five years and the DRC commits to increasing its health expenditure by $300 million. The bulk of the money will go into “a national integrated surveillance and outbreak response system, including a high-quality laboratory network capable of detecting and investigating infectious disease outbreaks within seven days”. “Under this system, relevant authorities, including the United States and other partners, will coordinate epidemic preparedness and rapid response measures to contain outbreaks and prevent their spread to neighboring areas,” according to the statement. The MOU also aims to modernise data and disease surveillance systems with “enhanced electronic medical records and interoperable platforms”, professionalise community health workers and “expand integrated delivery of essential health services for HIV, tuberculosis, malaria, polio, and maternal and child health”. First, the minerals… Guinea and the US signed a minerals MOU before the health MOU. The US held off signing an MOU with the DRC in terms of its “America First Global Health Strategy” on 5 December, when it signed deals with Rwanda and Kenya on the sidelines of the signing of a peace accord between Rwanda and the DRC. Instead, the US and the DRC signed a “strategic partnership agreement” to “promote secure, reliable, and mutually beneficial critical mineral flows for commercial and defense purposes”. The DRC is one of the world’s most important sources of rare earth minerals, but China has dominated the purchasing and processing of its minerals. In the past two months, the DRC has opened its rare minerals supply to the US. In late January, the DRC sent the US a shortlist of state-owned assets involving manganese, copper, cobalt, gold and lithium, for US investors to consider as part of a minerals partnership, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, the US MOU with Guinea, signed on 27 February, was also preceded by a minerals MOU, signed with the US on 5 February, giving the US access to “critical minerals”. The health MOU prioritises strengthening the country’s “laboratory networks with biosafety and biosecurity management aligned with international standards by 2027”. Legal backlash in DRC But not all countries want to exchange their minerals and other assets for aid. A group of lawyers in the DRC are challenging the minerals MOU in their Constitutional Court, arguing that it violates the country’s Constitution in various ways, including undermining national sovereignty over natural resources. “By filing this case with the Constitutional Court, we are assuming our responsibility as Congolese citizens to protect the sovereignty of our country and safeguard our patrimony for future generations,” said attorney Jean-Marie Kalonji, one of the plaintiffs. The case has yet to be heard. Meanwhile, Zimbabwe recently backed out of talks with the US as it was unhappy with what the US required from it in terms of outbreaks. “Zimbabwe was being asked to share its biological resources and data over an extended period, with no corresponding guarantee of access to any medical innovations—such as vaccines, diagnostics, or treatments—that might result from that shared data,” explained Nick Mangwana, Secretary for Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services. “In essence, our nation would provide the raw materials for scientific discovery without any assurance that the end products would be accessible to our people should a future health crisis emerge. The United States, meanwhile, was not offering reciprocal sharing of its own epidemiological data with our health authorities.” Kenya’s MOU with the US, the first of the series, has been halted by the country’s High Court as it faces two separate court challenges for giving the US access to patient data and pathogen information. The government of Zambia acknowledged last week that it is unhappy with part of a proposed health aid deal with the United States that “does not align with the country’s interests” and has requested “revisions” to the MOU. The Zambia-US bilateral health deal was due to be signed last December, but it faltered after the US linked the billion-dollar deal to access to Zambian minerals, particularly copper and cobalt. Just four days before the MOU was due to be signed, the US announced that the two countries had committed to a plan to unlock “a substantial grant package of US support in exchange for collaboration in the mining sector and clear business sector reforms that will drive economic growth and commercial investment that benefit both the United States and Zambia”. ‘Extractive’ policy Sophie Harman, professor of international politics at Queen Mary University of London, argues in last week’s BMJ that “extraction is the core principle of US President Donald Trump’s America First global health policy”. “The current US administration does not aim to improve health worldwide, instead it intends to make US companies richer and facilitate ‘leveraging US global health leadership to compete with China’,” writes Harman. “Entering a deal with the US government is a potential lose-lose for states. These countries risk losing resources and opportunities for wealth creation in their own countries, threatening alliances with China for relatively small advances in health, and creating political turmoil in domestic courts.” Europe is Failing to Curb Tobacco Use – Especially in Women 28/02/2026 Kerry Cullinan Smoking prevalence is higher amongst European women than anywhere else in the world. Europe is failing to curb tobacco use – particularly in women and girls – and will have the world’s highest prevalence by 2030, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) European region revealed this week. Of the region’s 53 states, tobacco use is highest in Serbia, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Montenegro – all exceeding 30% prevalence in people over the age of 14. The global average for tobacco use in people aged 15 and over is 19.5%, while in the WHO European Region it is 24.1%. The rate of female smokers is the highest in the world at 17.3% – or one in five women. This is almost double the prevalence of the next highest region, 9.1% in the Americas. Europe is the only WHO region not expected to meet the global target of a 30% reduction in tobacco use among women by 2025. It is currently projected to achieve only a 12% reduction between 2010 and 2025. “The 62 million female smokers in the European Region represent over 40% of the 143 million female smokers in the world,” according to the WHO, which released 10 new factsheets on tobacco consumption this week. “European girls aged 13 to 15 now have the highest tobacco use rates among their age group anywhere in the world,” continued Kluge. “That is not an accident, it’s the result of deliberate industry strategy targeting young people with flavoured products and sophisticated social media marketing. “Countries like Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands are proving it is possible to push back – by regulating novel products, banning flavours and restricting advertising. Every country in this region should be doing the same, to protect future generations.” Slow decreases While Europe’s tobacco consumption is decreasing, it is happening fairly slowly. In 2000, 47,5% of European men used tobacco, and by 2025 this was 30,3%. In women, tobacco use decreased from 22,3% in 2000 to 17,3% in 2025. “Tobacco use already causes over 1.1 million deaths from noncommunicable diseases in the European Region each year – and without accelerated action, we will stay the worst-performing region in the world by 2030,” said Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe. “We have a responsibility to change course now: to shield young people from nicotine addiction, prevent industry interference in health policy, and enforce the regulations that will prevent a lifetime of avoidable harm.” Uneven use of taxes Tax increases are being applied in some European countries – and in 28 countries, taxes represented more than 75% of the retail price of the most popular brand of cigarettes in 2024 – an increase from 16 countries in 2008. Twelve countries have increased prices since 2014, including Belgium, Czechia, Finland, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, North Macedonia, Slovakia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Uzbekistan. But cigarettes have become more affordable in 19 countries – up from just nine in 2022 – which may lead to higher smoking initiation, the WHO warned. Cigarettes are cheapest in Belarus, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan, and most expensive in Turkmenistan, Ireland, the UK and France. Uneven regulation Regulating e-cigarettes is uneven across the region. The region has the second-highest e-cigarette use prevalence in the world, with an estimated 31.4 million users, and regulation of e-cigarettes is fragmented. “Decades of progress are at risk unless policies keep pace with a rapidly evolving nicotine landscape,” said Kristina Mauer-Stender, Regional Adviser for Tobacco Control at WHO/Europe. “Applying the same strong tobacco control tools to new and emerging products is essential if we want to protect young people and sustain public health gains.” The fact sheets show that, while most countries in the region have strong tobacco monitoring systems and require large health warnings on packaging, implementation is uneven across other measures. Only 18 countries have comprehensive smoke-free laws covering all public spaces. Just 12 provide national quit lines and cover the cost of cessation services. Comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising and promotion exist in only 13 countries. Image Credits: Zaya Odeesho/ Unsplash, pixabay. WHO Updates Flu Vaccine in Response to Rapid Spread of New Variant 27/02/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen Dr Maria Van Kerkhove (2nd left) , Dr Wenqing Zhang, Dr Richard Webby and Prof Nicola Lewis present the WHO recommendation for the seasonal flu vaccine composition. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced its updated recommendations for the 2026-2027 Northern Hemisphere seasonal flu vaccine on Friday, a critical adjustment driven by the rapid global dominance of a new A(H3N2) variant known as subclade K. Following four days of intense consultation by the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS), experts finalized the flu vaccine composition to ensure it matches circulating threats. While announcing these seasonal updates at a press conference on Friday, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s Director ad interim for Epidemic and Pandemic Management, pointed to the broader danger of respiratory viruses, warning that “the threat of an influenza pandemic is real and everpresent”. She emphasized the critical need for flu vaccination to protect against severe disease and death. There are around a billion cases of seasonal influenza annually, including three to five million cases of severe illness. It causes an estimated 290,000 to 650,000 respiratory deaths annually, according to the WHO. Updated flu vaccine in response to rapid rise of new variant ‘subclade K’ A series of frequency charts illustrate the global dominance of the A(H3N2) subclade K variant. Since its sudden emergence in July and August of 2025, subclade K (scientifically classified as J.2.4.1) has rapidly spread globally, shifting the baseline of flu activity and replacing earlier dominant strains. This variant now accounts for the majority of influenza viruses reported across multiple regions. To react to this development, WHO issued two recommendations: Egg-based flu vaccines for the upcoming season include an A/Missouri/11/2025 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus, an A/Darwin/1454/2025 (H3N2)-like virus, and a B/Tokyo/EIS13-175/2025 (B/Victoria lineage)-like virus. Cell-based flu vaccines will similarly target the Missouri and Darwin strains, alongside a B/Pennsylvania/14/2025-like virus. Notably, the B/Yamagata lineage remains excluded from the formula, as no cases of this lineage have been documented since March 2020. Shifting flu seasons across hemispheres Prof Nicola Lewis highlighted prolonged influenza activity in the Southern Hemisphere (right). The unchecked spread of subclade K has significantly altered the traditional flu calendar. According to Professor Nicola Lewis, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre at the Francis Crick Institute in London, the Southern Hemisphere experienced complex disease dynamics. While the season began with H1 dominance, the sudden arrival of H3 subclade K extended the flu’s impact considerably in countries like Australia, she explained in a briefing on Friday. New Flu Strain Sweeping Europe Says WHO; but Vaccines Remain Effective, ECDC Finds Consequently, the virus’s spread caused the Northern Hemisphere to experience an unusually early start to its own influenza season, with countries such as the United Kingdom and Japan recording surges weeks ahead of historical averages. Zoonotic threats and pandemic preparedness Dr Richard Webby noted that while zoonotic threats primarily impact animal populations, the WHO remains on high alert for potential human infections. Beyond seasonal strains, health authorities remain on high alert regarding the dangers of avian and swine influenza. Globally, A(H5) viruses maintain a robust presence in bird populations across almost all regions except Oceania. Notably, spillover events into humans have recently included atypical subtypes like A(H5N2) in Mexico and A(H5N5) in the United States, causing disease ranging from moderate to fatal. Since September 2025, 25 human infections involving zoonotic influenza have been reported across six countries, primarily linked to direct animal exposure without evidence of human-to-human transmission. Fourteen of these cases involved H9N2 infections detected in China, noted Dr Richard Webby, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, USA. In response to slight evolutionary changes in these animal viruses, WHO is proactively recommending the development of an updated Candidate Vaccine Virus (CVV) for avian influenza A(H9N2) to ensure global pandemic preparedness is not caught off guard. Prioritizing vaccination and combatting misinformation Van Kerkhove highlighted that safe and effective vaccines remain the primary defense. With a highly transmissible strain circulating, experts reiterate that safe and effective flu vaccines remain the primary defense, particularly for vulnerable populations and healthcare workers. However, WHO is not ignoring public hesitancy. Van Kerkhove emphasized that global health leaders must actively listen to communities and take their concerns seriously. “We are listening to people. There are legitimate questions that need to be answered,” she affirmed, noting that WHO is collaborating with community and faith-based leaders to combat willful misinformation campaigns and empower individuals to make informed health decisions. Image Credits: Felix Sassmannshausen. Drone Busts Delhi’s Spring Clean Air Myth 27/02/2026 Chetan Bhattacharji Drone footage dispels the myth the Delhi’s air pollution improves in spring. NEW DELHI – For years, residents of the Indian capital have looked to the skies in March with a sense of relief, believing that the notorious winter pollution had finally retreated. However, a drone armed with an air quality monitor has shattered this perception, revealing a massive blanket of toxic air hovering just above the city’s skyline. This vertical pollution acts like a pollution lid over the capital. It also contains unexpectedly high concentrations of dangerous particles that ground-level monitors often fail to capture. Dark surprise in the spring sky The study indicates the vast scale of Delhi’s pollution. One of the authors, Prof Sagnik Dey of theIndian Institute of Technology (ITT) Delhi, estimates this to be roughly 240,000 kgs, equivalent to some 1,200 oil drums. “Taking Delhi, 30 km by 40 km, and considering PM2.5 up to 1 km, we are talking 1200 km3 volume of air,” Dey told Health Policy Watch. “When PM2.5 is 200 ug/m3 on a day, we are talking about 2,40,000 kg of particles to be cleaned out.” Another surprise is that this smog blanket occurred in mid-March when climatic conditions, including and temperature, favour the dispersal of pollution, unlike in winter. The study was conducted by a team at IIT Delhi, from its South Delhi campus between 11-23 March, 2021. The research, published in Nature this month, shows that while the air at street level might seem manageable, the atmosphere 100 metres above the ground was 60% more toxic. The new findings raise questions about how much of Delhi’s air crisis is driven by local sources and why current emergency measures are failing to clear the sky. There is a lot of complex chemistry at work, churning out the lethal cocktail of pollutants. The ingredients and level of pollution change depending on whether it is morning, noon, evening or night. The authors – numbering 20 from institutions in nine countries ranging from the UK to China – say that the study provides enough impetus to study the pollution above the city more deeply, using drones, to improve models and policy action to reduce air pollution. Toxic mornings The most dangerous window for residents is between 5am and 8am, when a “suppressed planetary boundary layer” acts like a physical ceiling below 200 metres altitude, trapping pollutants near the surface thanks to factors like cooler air, low/no wind, and humidity levels. The planetary boundary layer (PBL) can be as low as 50m and as high as a couple of thousand, depending on the temperature, time of day or year, and other factors. Usually, the higher the PBL, the lower the concentration of pollutants at ground level, which is why in summer the level of particulate matter tends to be lower in hot places like Delhi. On one day, the study found PM2.5 concentrations reached a staggering 160 µg/m³ (micrograms/cubic metre) at an altitude of 100m, typically the height of a 30-storey residential building. Ground monitors recorded only 100 µg/m³; WHO’s daily safe limit is 15 µg/m³. The altitude of the toxic haze shows the strength of local emissions and regional transport, Dey says. “This calls for prioritising emission reduction as the main mitigation strategy through systemic long-term measures rather than short-term emergency measures trying to filter this large volume of toxic air,” he added. The Delhi government has resorted to using hundreds of water sprinklers on trucks and buildings to subdue dust. In the past, it built ‘smog towers’, essentially outdoor air purifiers, before conceding these are ineffective. As the sun rises and the ground warms, this “lid” expands, allowing the toxic air to disperse into higher altitudes. By noon and into the early evening, the air becomes significantly clearer, with temperatures reaching 30-35°C and humidity dropping to 40-50%. What causes Delhi’s pollution peaks? Delhi air pollution during peak pollution days in mid-November. The report breaks down a list of pollutants, secondary pollutants formed as a result of primary pollutants and other factors like temperature and chemical reactions. The chemicals produced include chloride, black carbon or soot, sulphur dioxide to some extent from coal combustion, nitrogen dioxide and ozone, especially during traffic rush hour. These are emitted by burning biomass, solid fuels, waste, and from industries. An increase in the levels of chloride and black carbon are linked to the burning of biomass and solid fuel, which could be in waste as well. Tackling waste burning has often been identified by experts as a top priority to reduce the region’s air pollution. Exposure to these pollutants, particularly fine particulate matter like black carbon, is linked to severe respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, including asthma, lung cancer, and strokes. Additionally, nitrogen dioxide and ground-level ozone can significantly reduce lung function and trigger chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations. Traffic is a prime suspect A significant cause for this hovering haze is the city’s roads. The report highlights the staggering impact of vehicular pollution, noting that traffic contributes 40-50% of PM2.5 during peak hours. In areas near major traffic corridors, the drones detected high levels of “equivalent black carbon,” a particularly soot-heavy component of exhaust. This traffic-led pollution does not simply blow away. Instead, emissions from the millions of vehicles on Delhi’s roads build up overnight, trapped by the shallow boundary layer. This nocturnal build-up is further complicated by other local sources, including waste burning, industrial activities, and residential cooking. The study found that chloride, often linked to the burning of plastic and electronic waste, spiked in the early hours of the morning, acting as a chemical trigger that causes particles to grow and thicken the haze. Call for more drones To capture this data, researchers utilised a custom-designed drone platform built by an Indian start-up, BotLab Dynamics. The drone, weighing roughly 7.5 kg, was equipped with a modified low-cost sensor (LCS). The study involved 40 separate drone flights near heavy traffic corridors. However, back in March 2021, time was tight due to Covid restrictions. Now, the authors have called for more drone-based surveillance, at higher altitudes, and with better equipment. In the right conditions, tons of these pollutants can descend and threaten public health. Image Credits: Gustaf von Zeipel/ Unsplash, Chetan Bhattacharji. Posts navigation Older postsNewer posts This site uses cookies to help give you the best experience on our website. Cookies enable us to collect information that helps us personalise your experience and improve the functionality and performance of our site. By continuing to read our website, we assume you agree to this, otherwise you can adjust your browser settings. Please read our cookie and Privacy Policy. Our Cookies and Privacy Policy Loading Comments... You must be logged in to post a comment.
Europe is Failing to Curb Tobacco Use – Especially in Women 28/02/2026 Kerry Cullinan Smoking prevalence is higher amongst European women than anywhere else in the world. Europe is failing to curb tobacco use – particularly in women and girls – and will have the world’s highest prevalence by 2030, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) European region revealed this week. Of the region’s 53 states, tobacco use is highest in Serbia, North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Montenegro – all exceeding 30% prevalence in people over the age of 14. The global average for tobacco use in people aged 15 and over is 19.5%, while in the WHO European Region it is 24.1%. The rate of female smokers is the highest in the world at 17.3% – or one in five women. This is almost double the prevalence of the next highest region, 9.1% in the Americas. Europe is the only WHO region not expected to meet the global target of a 30% reduction in tobacco use among women by 2025. It is currently projected to achieve only a 12% reduction between 2010 and 2025. “The 62 million female smokers in the European Region represent over 40% of the 143 million female smokers in the world,” according to the WHO, which released 10 new factsheets on tobacco consumption this week. “European girls aged 13 to 15 now have the highest tobacco use rates among their age group anywhere in the world,” continued Kluge. “That is not an accident, it’s the result of deliberate industry strategy targeting young people with flavoured products and sophisticated social media marketing. “Countries like Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands are proving it is possible to push back – by regulating novel products, banning flavours and restricting advertising. Every country in this region should be doing the same, to protect future generations.” Slow decreases While Europe’s tobacco consumption is decreasing, it is happening fairly slowly. In 2000, 47,5% of European men used tobacco, and by 2025 this was 30,3%. In women, tobacco use decreased from 22,3% in 2000 to 17,3% in 2025. “Tobacco use already causes over 1.1 million deaths from noncommunicable diseases in the European Region each year – and without accelerated action, we will stay the worst-performing region in the world by 2030,” said Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe. “We have a responsibility to change course now: to shield young people from nicotine addiction, prevent industry interference in health policy, and enforce the regulations that will prevent a lifetime of avoidable harm.” Uneven use of taxes Tax increases are being applied in some European countries – and in 28 countries, taxes represented more than 75% of the retail price of the most popular brand of cigarettes in 2024 – an increase from 16 countries in 2008. Twelve countries have increased prices since 2014, including Belgium, Czechia, Finland, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, North Macedonia, Slovakia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Uzbekistan. But cigarettes have become more affordable in 19 countries – up from just nine in 2022 – which may lead to higher smoking initiation, the WHO warned. Cigarettes are cheapest in Belarus, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Azerbaijan, and most expensive in Turkmenistan, Ireland, the UK and France. Uneven regulation Regulating e-cigarettes is uneven across the region. The region has the second-highest e-cigarette use prevalence in the world, with an estimated 31.4 million users, and regulation of e-cigarettes is fragmented. “Decades of progress are at risk unless policies keep pace with a rapidly evolving nicotine landscape,” said Kristina Mauer-Stender, Regional Adviser for Tobacco Control at WHO/Europe. “Applying the same strong tobacco control tools to new and emerging products is essential if we want to protect young people and sustain public health gains.” The fact sheets show that, while most countries in the region have strong tobacco monitoring systems and require large health warnings on packaging, implementation is uneven across other measures. Only 18 countries have comprehensive smoke-free laws covering all public spaces. Just 12 provide national quit lines and cover the cost of cessation services. Comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising and promotion exist in only 13 countries. Image Credits: Zaya Odeesho/ Unsplash, pixabay. WHO Updates Flu Vaccine in Response to Rapid Spread of New Variant 27/02/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen Dr Maria Van Kerkhove (2nd left) , Dr Wenqing Zhang, Dr Richard Webby and Prof Nicola Lewis present the WHO recommendation for the seasonal flu vaccine composition. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced its updated recommendations for the 2026-2027 Northern Hemisphere seasonal flu vaccine on Friday, a critical adjustment driven by the rapid global dominance of a new A(H3N2) variant known as subclade K. Following four days of intense consultation by the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS), experts finalized the flu vaccine composition to ensure it matches circulating threats. While announcing these seasonal updates at a press conference on Friday, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s Director ad interim for Epidemic and Pandemic Management, pointed to the broader danger of respiratory viruses, warning that “the threat of an influenza pandemic is real and everpresent”. She emphasized the critical need for flu vaccination to protect against severe disease and death. There are around a billion cases of seasonal influenza annually, including three to five million cases of severe illness. It causes an estimated 290,000 to 650,000 respiratory deaths annually, according to the WHO. Updated flu vaccine in response to rapid rise of new variant ‘subclade K’ A series of frequency charts illustrate the global dominance of the A(H3N2) subclade K variant. Since its sudden emergence in July and August of 2025, subclade K (scientifically classified as J.2.4.1) has rapidly spread globally, shifting the baseline of flu activity and replacing earlier dominant strains. This variant now accounts for the majority of influenza viruses reported across multiple regions. To react to this development, WHO issued two recommendations: Egg-based flu vaccines for the upcoming season include an A/Missouri/11/2025 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus, an A/Darwin/1454/2025 (H3N2)-like virus, and a B/Tokyo/EIS13-175/2025 (B/Victoria lineage)-like virus. Cell-based flu vaccines will similarly target the Missouri and Darwin strains, alongside a B/Pennsylvania/14/2025-like virus. Notably, the B/Yamagata lineage remains excluded from the formula, as no cases of this lineage have been documented since March 2020. Shifting flu seasons across hemispheres Prof Nicola Lewis highlighted prolonged influenza activity in the Southern Hemisphere (right). The unchecked spread of subclade K has significantly altered the traditional flu calendar. According to Professor Nicola Lewis, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre at the Francis Crick Institute in London, the Southern Hemisphere experienced complex disease dynamics. While the season began with H1 dominance, the sudden arrival of H3 subclade K extended the flu’s impact considerably in countries like Australia, she explained in a briefing on Friday. New Flu Strain Sweeping Europe Says WHO; but Vaccines Remain Effective, ECDC Finds Consequently, the virus’s spread caused the Northern Hemisphere to experience an unusually early start to its own influenza season, with countries such as the United Kingdom and Japan recording surges weeks ahead of historical averages. Zoonotic threats and pandemic preparedness Dr Richard Webby noted that while zoonotic threats primarily impact animal populations, the WHO remains on high alert for potential human infections. Beyond seasonal strains, health authorities remain on high alert regarding the dangers of avian and swine influenza. Globally, A(H5) viruses maintain a robust presence in bird populations across almost all regions except Oceania. Notably, spillover events into humans have recently included atypical subtypes like A(H5N2) in Mexico and A(H5N5) in the United States, causing disease ranging from moderate to fatal. Since September 2025, 25 human infections involving zoonotic influenza have been reported across six countries, primarily linked to direct animal exposure without evidence of human-to-human transmission. Fourteen of these cases involved H9N2 infections detected in China, noted Dr Richard Webby, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, USA. In response to slight evolutionary changes in these animal viruses, WHO is proactively recommending the development of an updated Candidate Vaccine Virus (CVV) for avian influenza A(H9N2) to ensure global pandemic preparedness is not caught off guard. Prioritizing vaccination and combatting misinformation Van Kerkhove highlighted that safe and effective vaccines remain the primary defense. With a highly transmissible strain circulating, experts reiterate that safe and effective flu vaccines remain the primary defense, particularly for vulnerable populations and healthcare workers. However, WHO is not ignoring public hesitancy. Van Kerkhove emphasized that global health leaders must actively listen to communities and take their concerns seriously. “We are listening to people. There are legitimate questions that need to be answered,” she affirmed, noting that WHO is collaborating with community and faith-based leaders to combat willful misinformation campaigns and empower individuals to make informed health decisions. Image Credits: Felix Sassmannshausen. Drone Busts Delhi’s Spring Clean Air Myth 27/02/2026 Chetan Bhattacharji Drone footage dispels the myth the Delhi’s air pollution improves in spring. NEW DELHI – For years, residents of the Indian capital have looked to the skies in March with a sense of relief, believing that the notorious winter pollution had finally retreated. However, a drone armed with an air quality monitor has shattered this perception, revealing a massive blanket of toxic air hovering just above the city’s skyline. This vertical pollution acts like a pollution lid over the capital. It also contains unexpectedly high concentrations of dangerous particles that ground-level monitors often fail to capture. Dark surprise in the spring sky The study indicates the vast scale of Delhi’s pollution. One of the authors, Prof Sagnik Dey of theIndian Institute of Technology (ITT) Delhi, estimates this to be roughly 240,000 kgs, equivalent to some 1,200 oil drums. “Taking Delhi, 30 km by 40 km, and considering PM2.5 up to 1 km, we are talking 1200 km3 volume of air,” Dey told Health Policy Watch. “When PM2.5 is 200 ug/m3 on a day, we are talking about 2,40,000 kg of particles to be cleaned out.” Another surprise is that this smog blanket occurred in mid-March when climatic conditions, including and temperature, favour the dispersal of pollution, unlike in winter. The study was conducted by a team at IIT Delhi, from its South Delhi campus between 11-23 March, 2021. The research, published in Nature this month, shows that while the air at street level might seem manageable, the atmosphere 100 metres above the ground was 60% more toxic. The new findings raise questions about how much of Delhi’s air crisis is driven by local sources and why current emergency measures are failing to clear the sky. There is a lot of complex chemistry at work, churning out the lethal cocktail of pollutants. The ingredients and level of pollution change depending on whether it is morning, noon, evening or night. The authors – numbering 20 from institutions in nine countries ranging from the UK to China – say that the study provides enough impetus to study the pollution above the city more deeply, using drones, to improve models and policy action to reduce air pollution. Toxic mornings The most dangerous window for residents is between 5am and 8am, when a “suppressed planetary boundary layer” acts like a physical ceiling below 200 metres altitude, trapping pollutants near the surface thanks to factors like cooler air, low/no wind, and humidity levels. The planetary boundary layer (PBL) can be as low as 50m and as high as a couple of thousand, depending on the temperature, time of day or year, and other factors. Usually, the higher the PBL, the lower the concentration of pollutants at ground level, which is why in summer the level of particulate matter tends to be lower in hot places like Delhi. On one day, the study found PM2.5 concentrations reached a staggering 160 µg/m³ (micrograms/cubic metre) at an altitude of 100m, typically the height of a 30-storey residential building. Ground monitors recorded only 100 µg/m³; WHO’s daily safe limit is 15 µg/m³. The altitude of the toxic haze shows the strength of local emissions and regional transport, Dey says. “This calls for prioritising emission reduction as the main mitigation strategy through systemic long-term measures rather than short-term emergency measures trying to filter this large volume of toxic air,” he added. The Delhi government has resorted to using hundreds of water sprinklers on trucks and buildings to subdue dust. In the past, it built ‘smog towers’, essentially outdoor air purifiers, before conceding these are ineffective. As the sun rises and the ground warms, this “lid” expands, allowing the toxic air to disperse into higher altitudes. By noon and into the early evening, the air becomes significantly clearer, with temperatures reaching 30-35°C and humidity dropping to 40-50%. What causes Delhi’s pollution peaks? Delhi air pollution during peak pollution days in mid-November. The report breaks down a list of pollutants, secondary pollutants formed as a result of primary pollutants and other factors like temperature and chemical reactions. The chemicals produced include chloride, black carbon or soot, sulphur dioxide to some extent from coal combustion, nitrogen dioxide and ozone, especially during traffic rush hour. These are emitted by burning biomass, solid fuels, waste, and from industries. An increase in the levels of chloride and black carbon are linked to the burning of biomass and solid fuel, which could be in waste as well. Tackling waste burning has often been identified by experts as a top priority to reduce the region’s air pollution. Exposure to these pollutants, particularly fine particulate matter like black carbon, is linked to severe respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, including asthma, lung cancer, and strokes. Additionally, nitrogen dioxide and ground-level ozone can significantly reduce lung function and trigger chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations. Traffic is a prime suspect A significant cause for this hovering haze is the city’s roads. The report highlights the staggering impact of vehicular pollution, noting that traffic contributes 40-50% of PM2.5 during peak hours. In areas near major traffic corridors, the drones detected high levels of “equivalent black carbon,” a particularly soot-heavy component of exhaust. This traffic-led pollution does not simply blow away. Instead, emissions from the millions of vehicles on Delhi’s roads build up overnight, trapped by the shallow boundary layer. This nocturnal build-up is further complicated by other local sources, including waste burning, industrial activities, and residential cooking. The study found that chloride, often linked to the burning of plastic and electronic waste, spiked in the early hours of the morning, acting as a chemical trigger that causes particles to grow and thicken the haze. Call for more drones To capture this data, researchers utilised a custom-designed drone platform built by an Indian start-up, BotLab Dynamics. The drone, weighing roughly 7.5 kg, was equipped with a modified low-cost sensor (LCS). The study involved 40 separate drone flights near heavy traffic corridors. However, back in March 2021, time was tight due to Covid restrictions. Now, the authors have called for more drone-based surveillance, at higher altitudes, and with better equipment. In the right conditions, tons of these pollutants can descend and threaten public health. Image Credits: Gustaf von Zeipel/ Unsplash, Chetan Bhattacharji. Posts navigation Older postsNewer posts This site uses cookies to help give you the best experience on our website. Cookies enable us to collect information that helps us personalise your experience and improve the functionality and performance of our site. By continuing to read our website, we assume you agree to this, otherwise you can adjust your browser settings. Please read our cookie and Privacy Policy. Our Cookies and Privacy Policy Loading Comments... You must be logged in to post a comment.
WHO Updates Flu Vaccine in Response to Rapid Spread of New Variant 27/02/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen Dr Maria Van Kerkhove (2nd left) , Dr Wenqing Zhang, Dr Richard Webby and Prof Nicola Lewis present the WHO recommendation for the seasonal flu vaccine composition. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced its updated recommendations for the 2026-2027 Northern Hemisphere seasonal flu vaccine on Friday, a critical adjustment driven by the rapid global dominance of a new A(H3N2) variant known as subclade K. Following four days of intense consultation by the Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS), experts finalized the flu vaccine composition to ensure it matches circulating threats. While announcing these seasonal updates at a press conference on Friday, Dr Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s Director ad interim for Epidemic and Pandemic Management, pointed to the broader danger of respiratory viruses, warning that “the threat of an influenza pandemic is real and everpresent”. She emphasized the critical need for flu vaccination to protect against severe disease and death. There are around a billion cases of seasonal influenza annually, including three to five million cases of severe illness. It causes an estimated 290,000 to 650,000 respiratory deaths annually, according to the WHO. Updated flu vaccine in response to rapid rise of new variant ‘subclade K’ A series of frequency charts illustrate the global dominance of the A(H3N2) subclade K variant. Since its sudden emergence in July and August of 2025, subclade K (scientifically classified as J.2.4.1) has rapidly spread globally, shifting the baseline of flu activity and replacing earlier dominant strains. This variant now accounts for the majority of influenza viruses reported across multiple regions. To react to this development, WHO issued two recommendations: Egg-based flu vaccines for the upcoming season include an A/Missouri/11/2025 (H1N1)pdm09-like virus, an A/Darwin/1454/2025 (H3N2)-like virus, and a B/Tokyo/EIS13-175/2025 (B/Victoria lineage)-like virus. Cell-based flu vaccines will similarly target the Missouri and Darwin strains, alongside a B/Pennsylvania/14/2025-like virus. Notably, the B/Yamagata lineage remains excluded from the formula, as no cases of this lineage have been documented since March 2020. Shifting flu seasons across hemispheres Prof Nicola Lewis highlighted prolonged influenza activity in the Southern Hemisphere (right). The unchecked spread of subclade K has significantly altered the traditional flu calendar. According to Professor Nicola Lewis, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre at the Francis Crick Institute in London, the Southern Hemisphere experienced complex disease dynamics. While the season began with H1 dominance, the sudden arrival of H3 subclade K extended the flu’s impact considerably in countries like Australia, she explained in a briefing on Friday. New Flu Strain Sweeping Europe Says WHO; but Vaccines Remain Effective, ECDC Finds Consequently, the virus’s spread caused the Northern Hemisphere to experience an unusually early start to its own influenza season, with countries such as the United Kingdom and Japan recording surges weeks ahead of historical averages. Zoonotic threats and pandemic preparedness Dr Richard Webby noted that while zoonotic threats primarily impact animal populations, the WHO remains on high alert for potential human infections. Beyond seasonal strains, health authorities remain on high alert regarding the dangers of avian and swine influenza. Globally, A(H5) viruses maintain a robust presence in bird populations across almost all regions except Oceania. Notably, spillover events into humans have recently included atypical subtypes like A(H5N2) in Mexico and A(H5N5) in the United States, causing disease ranging from moderate to fatal. Since September 2025, 25 human infections involving zoonotic influenza have been reported across six countries, primarily linked to direct animal exposure without evidence of human-to-human transmission. Fourteen of these cases involved H9N2 infections detected in China, noted Dr Richard Webby, Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, USA. In response to slight evolutionary changes in these animal viruses, WHO is proactively recommending the development of an updated Candidate Vaccine Virus (CVV) for avian influenza A(H9N2) to ensure global pandemic preparedness is not caught off guard. Prioritizing vaccination and combatting misinformation Van Kerkhove highlighted that safe and effective vaccines remain the primary defense. With a highly transmissible strain circulating, experts reiterate that safe and effective flu vaccines remain the primary defense, particularly for vulnerable populations and healthcare workers. However, WHO is not ignoring public hesitancy. Van Kerkhove emphasized that global health leaders must actively listen to communities and take their concerns seriously. “We are listening to people. There are legitimate questions that need to be answered,” she affirmed, noting that WHO is collaborating with community and faith-based leaders to combat willful misinformation campaigns and empower individuals to make informed health decisions. Image Credits: Felix Sassmannshausen. Drone Busts Delhi’s Spring Clean Air Myth 27/02/2026 Chetan Bhattacharji Drone footage dispels the myth the Delhi’s air pollution improves in spring. NEW DELHI – For years, residents of the Indian capital have looked to the skies in March with a sense of relief, believing that the notorious winter pollution had finally retreated. However, a drone armed with an air quality monitor has shattered this perception, revealing a massive blanket of toxic air hovering just above the city’s skyline. This vertical pollution acts like a pollution lid over the capital. It also contains unexpectedly high concentrations of dangerous particles that ground-level monitors often fail to capture. Dark surprise in the spring sky The study indicates the vast scale of Delhi’s pollution. One of the authors, Prof Sagnik Dey of theIndian Institute of Technology (ITT) Delhi, estimates this to be roughly 240,000 kgs, equivalent to some 1,200 oil drums. “Taking Delhi, 30 km by 40 km, and considering PM2.5 up to 1 km, we are talking 1200 km3 volume of air,” Dey told Health Policy Watch. “When PM2.5 is 200 ug/m3 on a day, we are talking about 2,40,000 kg of particles to be cleaned out.” Another surprise is that this smog blanket occurred in mid-March when climatic conditions, including and temperature, favour the dispersal of pollution, unlike in winter. The study was conducted by a team at IIT Delhi, from its South Delhi campus between 11-23 March, 2021. The research, published in Nature this month, shows that while the air at street level might seem manageable, the atmosphere 100 metres above the ground was 60% more toxic. The new findings raise questions about how much of Delhi’s air crisis is driven by local sources and why current emergency measures are failing to clear the sky. There is a lot of complex chemistry at work, churning out the lethal cocktail of pollutants. The ingredients and level of pollution change depending on whether it is morning, noon, evening or night. The authors – numbering 20 from institutions in nine countries ranging from the UK to China – say that the study provides enough impetus to study the pollution above the city more deeply, using drones, to improve models and policy action to reduce air pollution. Toxic mornings The most dangerous window for residents is between 5am and 8am, when a “suppressed planetary boundary layer” acts like a physical ceiling below 200 metres altitude, trapping pollutants near the surface thanks to factors like cooler air, low/no wind, and humidity levels. The planetary boundary layer (PBL) can be as low as 50m and as high as a couple of thousand, depending on the temperature, time of day or year, and other factors. Usually, the higher the PBL, the lower the concentration of pollutants at ground level, which is why in summer the level of particulate matter tends to be lower in hot places like Delhi. On one day, the study found PM2.5 concentrations reached a staggering 160 µg/m³ (micrograms/cubic metre) at an altitude of 100m, typically the height of a 30-storey residential building. Ground monitors recorded only 100 µg/m³; WHO’s daily safe limit is 15 µg/m³. The altitude of the toxic haze shows the strength of local emissions and regional transport, Dey says. “This calls for prioritising emission reduction as the main mitigation strategy through systemic long-term measures rather than short-term emergency measures trying to filter this large volume of toxic air,” he added. The Delhi government has resorted to using hundreds of water sprinklers on trucks and buildings to subdue dust. In the past, it built ‘smog towers’, essentially outdoor air purifiers, before conceding these are ineffective. As the sun rises and the ground warms, this “lid” expands, allowing the toxic air to disperse into higher altitudes. By noon and into the early evening, the air becomes significantly clearer, with temperatures reaching 30-35°C and humidity dropping to 40-50%. What causes Delhi’s pollution peaks? Delhi air pollution during peak pollution days in mid-November. The report breaks down a list of pollutants, secondary pollutants formed as a result of primary pollutants and other factors like temperature and chemical reactions. The chemicals produced include chloride, black carbon or soot, sulphur dioxide to some extent from coal combustion, nitrogen dioxide and ozone, especially during traffic rush hour. These are emitted by burning biomass, solid fuels, waste, and from industries. An increase in the levels of chloride and black carbon are linked to the burning of biomass and solid fuel, which could be in waste as well. Tackling waste burning has often been identified by experts as a top priority to reduce the region’s air pollution. Exposure to these pollutants, particularly fine particulate matter like black carbon, is linked to severe respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, including asthma, lung cancer, and strokes. Additionally, nitrogen dioxide and ground-level ozone can significantly reduce lung function and trigger chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations. Traffic is a prime suspect A significant cause for this hovering haze is the city’s roads. The report highlights the staggering impact of vehicular pollution, noting that traffic contributes 40-50% of PM2.5 during peak hours. In areas near major traffic corridors, the drones detected high levels of “equivalent black carbon,” a particularly soot-heavy component of exhaust. This traffic-led pollution does not simply blow away. Instead, emissions from the millions of vehicles on Delhi’s roads build up overnight, trapped by the shallow boundary layer. This nocturnal build-up is further complicated by other local sources, including waste burning, industrial activities, and residential cooking. The study found that chloride, often linked to the burning of plastic and electronic waste, spiked in the early hours of the morning, acting as a chemical trigger that causes particles to grow and thicken the haze. Call for more drones To capture this data, researchers utilised a custom-designed drone platform built by an Indian start-up, BotLab Dynamics. The drone, weighing roughly 7.5 kg, was equipped with a modified low-cost sensor (LCS). The study involved 40 separate drone flights near heavy traffic corridors. However, back in March 2021, time was tight due to Covid restrictions. Now, the authors have called for more drone-based surveillance, at higher altitudes, and with better equipment. In the right conditions, tons of these pollutants can descend and threaten public health. Image Credits: Gustaf von Zeipel/ Unsplash, Chetan Bhattacharji. Posts navigation Older postsNewer posts This site uses cookies to help give you the best experience on our website. Cookies enable us to collect information that helps us personalise your experience and improve the functionality and performance of our site. By continuing to read our website, we assume you agree to this, otherwise you can adjust your browser settings. Please read our cookie and Privacy Policy. Our Cookies and Privacy Policy
Drone Busts Delhi’s Spring Clean Air Myth 27/02/2026 Chetan Bhattacharji Drone footage dispels the myth the Delhi’s air pollution improves in spring. NEW DELHI – For years, residents of the Indian capital have looked to the skies in March with a sense of relief, believing that the notorious winter pollution had finally retreated. However, a drone armed with an air quality monitor has shattered this perception, revealing a massive blanket of toxic air hovering just above the city’s skyline. This vertical pollution acts like a pollution lid over the capital. It also contains unexpectedly high concentrations of dangerous particles that ground-level monitors often fail to capture. Dark surprise in the spring sky The study indicates the vast scale of Delhi’s pollution. One of the authors, Prof Sagnik Dey of theIndian Institute of Technology (ITT) Delhi, estimates this to be roughly 240,000 kgs, equivalent to some 1,200 oil drums. “Taking Delhi, 30 km by 40 km, and considering PM2.5 up to 1 km, we are talking 1200 km3 volume of air,” Dey told Health Policy Watch. “When PM2.5 is 200 ug/m3 on a day, we are talking about 2,40,000 kg of particles to be cleaned out.” Another surprise is that this smog blanket occurred in mid-March when climatic conditions, including and temperature, favour the dispersal of pollution, unlike in winter. The study was conducted by a team at IIT Delhi, from its South Delhi campus between 11-23 March, 2021. The research, published in Nature this month, shows that while the air at street level might seem manageable, the atmosphere 100 metres above the ground was 60% more toxic. The new findings raise questions about how much of Delhi’s air crisis is driven by local sources and why current emergency measures are failing to clear the sky. There is a lot of complex chemistry at work, churning out the lethal cocktail of pollutants. The ingredients and level of pollution change depending on whether it is morning, noon, evening or night. The authors – numbering 20 from institutions in nine countries ranging from the UK to China – say that the study provides enough impetus to study the pollution above the city more deeply, using drones, to improve models and policy action to reduce air pollution. Toxic mornings The most dangerous window for residents is between 5am and 8am, when a “suppressed planetary boundary layer” acts like a physical ceiling below 200 metres altitude, trapping pollutants near the surface thanks to factors like cooler air, low/no wind, and humidity levels. The planetary boundary layer (PBL) can be as low as 50m and as high as a couple of thousand, depending on the temperature, time of day or year, and other factors. Usually, the higher the PBL, the lower the concentration of pollutants at ground level, which is why in summer the level of particulate matter tends to be lower in hot places like Delhi. On one day, the study found PM2.5 concentrations reached a staggering 160 µg/m³ (micrograms/cubic metre) at an altitude of 100m, typically the height of a 30-storey residential building. Ground monitors recorded only 100 µg/m³; WHO’s daily safe limit is 15 µg/m³. The altitude of the toxic haze shows the strength of local emissions and regional transport, Dey says. “This calls for prioritising emission reduction as the main mitigation strategy through systemic long-term measures rather than short-term emergency measures trying to filter this large volume of toxic air,” he added. The Delhi government has resorted to using hundreds of water sprinklers on trucks and buildings to subdue dust. In the past, it built ‘smog towers’, essentially outdoor air purifiers, before conceding these are ineffective. As the sun rises and the ground warms, this “lid” expands, allowing the toxic air to disperse into higher altitudes. By noon and into the early evening, the air becomes significantly clearer, with temperatures reaching 30-35°C and humidity dropping to 40-50%. What causes Delhi’s pollution peaks? Delhi air pollution during peak pollution days in mid-November. The report breaks down a list of pollutants, secondary pollutants formed as a result of primary pollutants and other factors like temperature and chemical reactions. The chemicals produced include chloride, black carbon or soot, sulphur dioxide to some extent from coal combustion, nitrogen dioxide and ozone, especially during traffic rush hour. These are emitted by burning biomass, solid fuels, waste, and from industries. An increase in the levels of chloride and black carbon are linked to the burning of biomass and solid fuel, which could be in waste as well. Tackling waste burning has often been identified by experts as a top priority to reduce the region’s air pollution. Exposure to these pollutants, particularly fine particulate matter like black carbon, is linked to severe respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, including asthma, lung cancer, and strokes. Additionally, nitrogen dioxide and ground-level ozone can significantly reduce lung function and trigger chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) exacerbations. Traffic is a prime suspect A significant cause for this hovering haze is the city’s roads. The report highlights the staggering impact of vehicular pollution, noting that traffic contributes 40-50% of PM2.5 during peak hours. In areas near major traffic corridors, the drones detected high levels of “equivalent black carbon,” a particularly soot-heavy component of exhaust. This traffic-led pollution does not simply blow away. Instead, emissions from the millions of vehicles on Delhi’s roads build up overnight, trapped by the shallow boundary layer. This nocturnal build-up is further complicated by other local sources, including waste burning, industrial activities, and residential cooking. The study found that chloride, often linked to the burning of plastic and electronic waste, spiked in the early hours of the morning, acting as a chemical trigger that causes particles to grow and thicken the haze. Call for more drones To capture this data, researchers utilised a custom-designed drone platform built by an Indian start-up, BotLab Dynamics. The drone, weighing roughly 7.5 kg, was equipped with a modified low-cost sensor (LCS). The study involved 40 separate drone flights near heavy traffic corridors. However, back in March 2021, time was tight due to Covid restrictions. Now, the authors have called for more drone-based surveillance, at higher altitudes, and with better equipment. In the right conditions, tons of these pollutants can descend and threaten public health. Image Credits: Gustaf von Zeipel/ Unsplash, Chetan Bhattacharji. Posts navigation Older postsNewer posts