Activists Organise Against Erosion of Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights 26/01/2026 Kerry Cullinan Women are being taught how to access information about contraception on their smartphones in Indonesia. The UN’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) provides an avenue for human rights activists to advocate for more rights for citizens. Grassroots organising, using the United Nations’ Universal Periodic Review (UPR) and creating new multilateral coordination are some of the ways to counter the current attack on sexual and reproductive health (SRH), according to activists. There is a “rise of unapologetic, unabashed, hegemonic masculinity and really harmful gender stereotypes,” Paola Salwan Daher, Women Deliver’s senior director for collective action, told a webinar on the anti-rights pushback. Far-right governments “are bringing the message that women should not have the same rights as men,” and tech billionaires “have put their incommensurable wealth behind this”, she added. “We are seeing deeply biased misinformation around women’s bodies, around women’s health, and the undermining of women and girls’ agency.” To counter what she describes as “Conservative International”, Women Deliver is convening a global gender equality conference in April to enable like-minded organisations “to meet each other to strategise together”. “We are organising to push forward a more progressive agenda that really centres the autonomy, the rights to dignity for women and girls,” she said. Salwan Daher added that the current “crisis of multilateralism doesn’t come from nowhere”. “It has been exacerbated by the postures of the Trump administration, but really, it was brewing before. It was brewing because of double standards in the application of international law. The genocide in Palestine has really exposed the fault lines,” said Salwan Daher. “We do not want a world without multilateralism. So now is the time to reimagine collectively what multilateral can look like. How do we make it people-centred? How do we make accountability at the root of everything, every process and every global space? How do we ensure the legal obligations of states?” Abortion taboo Pauline Fernandez, coordinator of the Philippines Safe Abortion Advocacy Network (PINSAN), said that despite her country having one of the harshest laws against abortion, there was growing recognition of the need to decriminalise abortion. “Despite it being criminalised, abortion remains a widespread and urgent reality in the Philippines,” said Frenandez. “Data shows that upwards of a million women undergo abortions annually, and because of abortion-related complications, up to three women die every day in the Philippines.” Sustained organising about the importance of decriminalisation had seen PINSAN to her grow from 10 to 130 organisations. Over 30,000 people have signed PINSAN’s petitionin support of decriminalisation, helped by a recent Netflix documentary on the subject by a famous local filmmaker. Regular reviews Dr Virginia Kamowa, regional and country manager at the Global Center for Health Diplomacy and Inclusion (CeHDI), which co-hosted the event, said that the Universal Periodic Review UPR) provides a lever to ensure better SRH services. “The UPR is the only mechanism of UN that reviews every country on a regular cycle against the human rights obligations of the governments, and produces a public on-the-record government commitment,” explained Kamowa. “More and more recommendations have been on health,” she said, adding that aroung 82% of health recommendations were accepted by the country being reviewed. Improving maternal health involved many aspects of SRH, she noted. Rwanda was reviewed last week, while the reviews of St Lucia, Namibia, Mozambique, Somalia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone and Eswatini are imminent. “All 193 UN member states undergo a UPR. There’s a national report that is written by the government within the country, but also the UN bodies within the country that also do their own population and stakeholder research, civil society, NGOs and human rights institutions also compile their summary reports. “During the process, other states ask questions and make recommendations to the country that is being reviewed, and the reviewed country can accept or not those recommendations, and then there is follow up in the next cycle of the UPR review.” Image Credits: ©Gates Foundation/ Prashant Panjiar. ‘Suspended or Cancelled’: Guinea-Bissau Health Minister Halts Controversial Hepatitis B Trial 22/01/2026 Kerry Cullinan Guinea-Bissau Health Minister Quinhim Nanthote (right), with his director-general, Dr Armando Sifna. A controversial trial to examine various impacts of the hepatitis B vaccine on newborn babies in Guinea-Bissau has been “suspended or cancelled”, the country’s Health Minister, Quinhim Nanthote, told a media briefing convened by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) on Thursday. This is despite recent assertions by the US Health and Human Services (HHS) Department, which is funding the trial, that it was going ahead. Nanthote initially told the briefing that his country’s ethics committee had not yet held a meeting about the trial, but later said that it “did not have the required technical resources” to approve the trial. Nanthote, who addressed the briefing in military fatigues, was only appointed health minister on 29 November 2025, following a military coup three days earlier. He was not part of discussions about the trial, which has been proposed by the Danish research group, Bandim Health Project. According to Bandim’s trial protocol, dated 14 January, “the Guinea-Bissau Committee of Ethics approved the trial on 5 November, 2025, with approval number 036-CNES-INASA-2025”. However, this was before the military coup. Global outrage There has been global outrage over the ethics of the trial, which would only give half the 14,000 babies it aims to enrol a hepatitis B vaccination shortly after birth – despite clinical evidence that early vaccination is highly effective at preventing mother-to-child transmission of the virus, which is the leading global cause of liver disease. Although babies in the country only start to get vaccinated against hepatitis B at six weeks, around 11% of children in the country are already infected with hepatitis B by the age of 18 months,and the government has resolved to introduce vaccination at birth from 2027/8. While Bandim says it will stop its trial before the national rollout, health experts assert that it is unethical to knowingly withhold a proven treatment from a baby born to a mother with hepatitis B (the trial is single-blinded, so researchers will know which babies get the vaccination and which get the placebo). US involvement The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded Bandim a $1,6 million five-year grant to “assess the effects of neonatal Hepatitis B vaccination on early-life mortality, morbidity, and long-term developmental outcomes”, according to the US HHS federal register. Dr Christine Stabell Benn, co-leader of Bandim, is an adviser to the US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which recently resolved to stop recommending hepatitis B vaccines to US newborns. HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr fired most of the ACIP members last year, replacing them with a committee dominated by vaccine critics. For years, Stabell Benn, co-principal investigator of the Guinea-Bissau trial, has researched the “non-specific effects” (NSE) of vaccines. She and colleagues have conducted trials involving thousands of children in Guinea-Bissau and Denmark, and assert that all vaccines should also be tested for NSEs. One of the research aims of their Guinea-Bissau trial is to investigate the effect of the vaccination “on neurodevelopment by five years of age”. This dovetails with Kennedy’s belief that the rise of autism is linked to childhood vaccinations. “RFK Jr. has manipulated the [Guinea-Bissau] study to support his unsupportable, science-resistant beliefs about harms caused by the hepatitis B vaccine,” observed US paediatrician Dr Paul Offit, co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine, on his Substack platform. Role of Africa CDC Africa CDC Director-General Dr Jean Kaseya Africa CDC Director-General Dr Jean Kaseya said that African countries were in “total control” of clinical trials conducted in their countries. However, Africa CDC has developed a 13-step guide to assist countries. “I was talking to the minister [of Guinea-Bissau] who called me three days ago and clearly said, told me: ‘DG, I’m a new Minister. I’m still waiting for the two steps, the National Medicine Regulatory Authority and the National Ethics Committee, to come to brief me and to give me the recommendations. I’m also asking if Africa CDC can come and support us to see this protocol and all other documents, then I can make a decision based on this recommendation’,” Kaseya told the media briefing. He also dismissed a report that unnamed HHS officials had made disparaging remarks about Africa CDC over its contention at a media briefing last week that the trial had been cancelled. “We have our diplomatic relationship with the US. Yesterday, senior people from HHS were talking to senior people from Africa CDC, and I was briefed that they don’t know anything about any statement against Africa CDC,” said Kaseya, who said that his organisation has an “excellent relationship” with the US government. Kaseya added that Africa CDC had decided not to involve itself in the bilateral Memorandums of Understanding that the US was negotiating with African governments under its “America First Global Health Strategy”. However, he said that the implementation of the MOUs would be discussed at a meeting of health and finance ministers that he is convening on 13 February. Not All Diseases Are Equal: How a World Economic Forum Report quietly reshaped the NCD agenda 22/01/2026 Habib Benzian As the World Economic Forum (WEF) met in Davos this week, a new WEF report on NCDs reflects the influences of powerful groups on disease priorities. The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) latest report on acting early on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) signals more than urgency. It signals a shift in what counts. Beneath familiar calls for earlier action sits a quieter move: a re-ordering of NCD priorities themselves. Some diseases now sit firmly at the centre of the agenda. Others, no less prevalent or consequential, are absent or muted. The clearest indicator is the report’s treatment of chronic kidney disease (CKD). CKD is presented, not as a downstream complication, but as a core NCD, positioned comfortably alongside cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and chronic respiratory disease. No extended justification is offered. Its inclusion is just assumed. CKD’s elevation is overdue, but its inclusion in the WEF report also reveals how NCD categories solidify. Diseases move to the centre not only because of burden, but because they align with existing biomedical pathways, specialist care models, insurance logic, and pharmaceutical governance. Seen this way, the report is not simply about acting earlier. It is about which disease problems global health institutions are structurally prepared to organise around. The politics of NCDs NCDs have never been a neutral list. They are the product of political and institutional settlement. Inclusion brings visibility, financing, and organisational ownership. Exclusion does not erase a condition, but it shapes how seriously it is taken in policy, planning, and budgets. What this report suggests is that the settlement is shifting again, quietly rather than through open debate. The contrast between what fits and what does not is striking. Oral health is absent altogether, despite affecting more people globally than all other NCDs combined. Dementia barely registers, even as it reshapes ageing societies and long-term care systems. Air pollution appears only as a generic risk factor, detached from its regulatory implications. Obesity and physical inactivity are acknowledged but they never organise the analysis. Mental health is present, but thinly so. Eye health and several other NCDs are missing entirely. This is not ignorance. The WEF itself has published economic analyses making the case for investing in oral health. It is well aware of dementia, air pollution, and obesity as global challenges. The issue is not whether these conditions matter, it is whether they fit prevailing system architectures. Institutional compromises Debates around expanding the NCD frame, including the so-called 6×6 perspective, were never simply about adding conditions to a list. They exposed how the NCD framework hardened into an institutional compromise, privileging problems that are easier to govern, finance, and narrate. Oral health and others were excluded not because the evidence was weak, but because their inclusion would have unsettled that compromise. What the WEF report suggests is that the frame is being adjusted again, but cautiously. Rather than opening outward to accommodate conditions that strain existing arrangements, it tightens inward around those that reinforce them. CKD aligns neatly with this logic. It can be framed as an extension of diabetes and hypertension. It lends itself to biomedical markers, specialist pathways, and pharmaceutical management. It fits insurance systems and performance frameworks. Crucially, it does not force difficult conversations about food systems, sugar, taxation, or commercial power. It can be absorbed without rewriting the rules. Other conditions are less accommodating. Oral diseases pull sugar into view as a specific commercial determinant, not a vague lifestyle choice. They expose the fragility of private financing and fee-based care, and make inequality impossible to ignore. Dementia collapses the boundary between health and social care. Air pollution pushes responsibility far beyond the health sector. Climate-related exposures, including extreme heat, increasingly shape NCD risk and outcomes, yet remain difficult to absorb into disease-specific prevention frameworks, as they demand action across labour policy, urban design, housing, and climate governance. Obesity, if taken seriously, leads quickly to trade policy and regulation. These are not marginal complications. They are precisely the kinds of questions that strain consensus and unsettle partnerships. Inclusive understanding This quiet consolidation sits alongside longer-standing efforts by groups such as the NCD Alliance to defend a broad and inclusive understanding of NCDs. That advocacy has helped keep multiple conditions visible in political commitments, even as institutional practice increasingly favours a narrower, more governable set of priorities. The institutional setting matters. The WEF operates through public–private convening. Pharmaceutical companies, diagnostics firms, and health-technology actors are not peripheral to its health work; they are part of the room. This does not mean reports are written to serve corporate interests, but it does shape which narratives travel easily and which stall. One contemporary signal reinforces this pattern. This week at the WEF in Davos, a global partnership was announced between Colgate-Palmolive (the leading global manufacturer of oral hygiene products) and the WHO Foundation. At a moment of tightening budgets at WHO, including the loss of dedicated oral-health staff, such arrangements are widely hoped to help stabilise institutional capacity and preserve visibility for conditions otherwise at risk of further marginalisation. Analytically, they reflect the same logic at work: when conditions fall outside the core NCD architecture, they advance through parallel channels rather than through the centre of system reform. The risk is subtle but real. The NCD discourse begins to tilt away from the conditions that most shape lived experience towards those that best fit institutional comfort. Authority shifts not because of burden or equity, but because of governability. CKD did not move to the centre by chance. It arrived because it belongs to the version of NCDs that the global health sector currently finds easiest to manage. Other conditions remain outside, not because they matter less, but because they ask harder questions about responsibility, power, and what health systems are ultimately for. That is what this report reveals. It is not primarily a story about acting early. It is a story about how carefully and quietly the boundaries of action are being redrawn. Habib Benzian is Professor at the University of the Western Cape (Cape Town, South Africa), Noel Martin Visiting Chair at the University of Sydney’s Dental School; and a member of the Lancet Commission on Oral Health. He advises governments and international organisations on health policy and equity. Image Credits: WEF. Gates and OpenAI Team Up to Pilot AI Solutions to African Healthcare Problems 21/01/2026 Kerry Cullinan Community Health Workers attend a training session on HIV prevention in Kirehe, Rwanda. The Gates Foundation and OpenAI announced a $50 million “pilot” on Wednesday to “advance AI capabilities for health” in Africa. Horizon 1000 promises “funding, technology, and technical support” to roll out AI solutions to 1,000 African primary healthcare clinics by 2028. “AI is going to be a scientific marvel no matter what, but for it to be a societal marvel, we’ve got to figure out ways that we use this incredible technology to improve people’s lives,” said Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, in a media release. “The goal is to make [health care] much higher quality, and if possible, twice as efficient as it is today – taking away the paperwork, organising resources so the patient knows what is available and when to come for their appointments,” Gates Foundation CEO Bill Gates told a session at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos on Wednesday. Starting with Rwanda The pilot will start in Rwanda, and later branch out to Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria, Gates added. Rwanda is already exploring the use of AI to help health workers with disease diagnosis, relieve them of onerous administrative tasks, and model the trajectory of diseases. Paula Ingabire, Rwanda’s Minister of Information, Communication and Technology and Innovation, told the WEF that her country has been working on technological solutions for its “pain points” for over two decades. As a start, the country has rolled out internet access to around 97% of its population – a significant achievement in a country where most people live in rural areas. It is currently building “some of the foundational digital infrastructure that is enabling and powering [technological] advancements,” said Ingabire. One of Rwanda’s aims is to use AI to create “decision-support tools” for its 60,000-plus community health workers (CHW) who provide primary healthcare to communities across the country. As around 70% of the cases CHW deal with every year are malaria, the country wants an AI tool to help them to improve diagnosis and to better anticipate when and where to expect malaria cases, said Ingabire. Paula Ingabire, Rwanda’s Minister of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) and Innovation. Rwanda has already used a combination of drones and AI to address malaria – with the drones pinpointing and spraying mosquito breeding sites and AI helping with the prediction and modelling of the disease. Two years ago, Rwanda set itself the goal of quadrupling its health workforce in four years – something it has already almost achieved. “But they’re going to need these tools to support better care delivery. Some of the administrative tasks that they’ve been working on, we can use AI to do that, so they’re more focused on delivering better and targeted care to our people,” Ingabire said. The government also wants to use AI to improve its demand forecasting for health commodities to prevent medicine stockouts. “We started this digital transformation journey more than 15 years ago. We have a lot of data that we’re not using. Building national data intelligence platforms that help us is critical. Once we build these models, they need to be trained on our own data, they need to be context specific, and they need to come in to address real problems.” Ingabire added that her country is also in conversation with the AI company Anthropic, which developed the large language model Claude, “to see how we can have an instant health intelligence platform that then feeds into the entire national health planning systems and allows us to allocate better resources”. AI-based TB screening Global Fund CEO Peter Sands Peter Sands, CEO of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, told the WEF that the fund has invested $170 million over the past four years in AI-based TB screening. This is one of the largest single applications of AI and health, and it is delivering a “very significant impact”, he added. One example of how the Fund has used AI-based TB screening is in refugee camps. “There are well over a million Sudanese refugees in Chad, and we set up mobile clinics with the government of Chad to go into these refugee camps and do screening for TB,” said Sands. As there were no radiologists, “if you want the screening to be interpreted, there is no alternative [but AI]”, he added. However, Sands warned that some “very basic problems” still need to be fixed to enable the rollout of AI-driven solutions – primarily that many African primary health care facilities lack internet connectivity, and some even lack power. He also urged the use of AI to be “framed around problems needing solutions, as opposed to a whole bunch of tools needing a problem to fix” – akin to people “running around with a whole lot of hammers looking for nails”. He added that tools are easier to develop than finding people “who can actually use them and make things happen”. Faster progress in LMICs than wealthy countries? Gates Foundation CEO Bill Gates Gates believes that there may be faster progress with the rollout of AI in healthcare in developing world health than the “rich world” because “the need is so great, and the governments are embracing this and making sure that it’s moving at full speed”. “The $50 million commitment is just the beginning. I believe that people in Africa should have this ‘health advisor’ without having to pay anything for it. It should just be a basic capability available to them. “As you go into the health system, instead of filling out paperwork and redescribing everything, the AI that you’ve been talking to is summarising that… getting rid of the paperwork together.” Sands also believes that low- and middle-income countries could adopt AI tools faster than developed economies, which are more regulated and where AI is more likely to take away jobs. “One of the reasons this may well take off faster in middle-income countries is because there won’t be the resistance from people who say: ‘This has taken my job’ and ‘I don’t want to change the way we do things’, because it’s compensating for the fact that those people don’t exist.” Image Credits: Cecille Joan Avila / Partners In Health. After Court Rebuke, Government Releases Unified Report Identifying Sources of Delhi Pollution 20/01/2026 Chetan Bhattacharji A new government report concedes that vehicles are the most prominent source of pollution within Delhi, and that the mandatory pollution-under-control (PUC) certificates are not a true representative of emissions. DELHI – India’s Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) has identified the main sources of Delhi’s severe air pollution and admitted that there are critical gaps in current control measures, in response to a deadline set by the Supreme Court. The report, completed in a fortnight, synthesises findings from multiple research institutions to create the first unified assessment of what is polluting the capital. The Supreme Court-mandated report reveals that the city’s main air pollution sources are: transport (23%), secondary particulates (27%), and dust (15-27%). Winter PM2.5 levels are 35 times the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, despite decade-long efforts. The report comes after the Supreme Court criticised CAQM on 2 January, for delays in identifying causes and finding long-term solutions to Delhi’s “worsening” air quality. What sets this report apart from earlier studies is that it synthesises previous assessments to arrive at one unified set of numbers. The agency achieved this by bringing together researchers from government agencies, Indian Institutes of Technology, research institutes, NGOs and think-tanks. The Chief Justice of India criticised the CAQM earlier this year, saying that it “appears to be in no hurry either to identify the causes or to find long-term solutions” to Delhi’s pollution. The court added that the CAQM is obligated to bring domain experts together to arrive at a uniform and unanimous opinion on the causes of the “worsening” air quality. Government concedes major gaps The CAQM’s report is also significant because it concedes several critical gaps in Delhi’s pollution control efforts. These range from conceding that PM2.5, or fine particulate matter pollution, is the “worst” pollutant to accepting that the pollution-under-control (PUC) certificates don’t check all key pollutants emitted by vehicles. The panel included experts from government institutions as well as independent research organisations, including the Centre for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), Urban Emission, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). The report has released two important data sets. The first shows that there has been a decline since 2016 in the annual average level of PM2.5. But the trendline (in blue in the chart below) has been almost flat since 2019, the year that the Indian government launched the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP). Delhi’s PM2.5 air pollution has hovered around 100 micrograms per cubic metre for the last seven years, which is 2.5 times India’s safe standard but 20 times the WHO’s safe guidelines. Source: Based on data from CAQM Main sources of Delhi’s air pollution Delhi’s air pollution in winter and summer is starkly different, with winter pollution being more than twice as severe. The largest contributor to Delhi’s winter PM2.5 pollution is secondary particulate matter (27%), tiny particles formed in the air from gaseous emissions from vehicles, industries, and biomass burning. Among primary sources, transport vehicles contribute 23% while biomass burning, including burning solid fuels for cooking and warmth and crop residue burning, adds 20%. Dust from roads, construction, and demolition accounts for 15%, and industrial emissions contribute 9%. In summer, dust becomes the dominant source, causing 27% of PM2.5 levels, driven by dry conditions and construction activity. Transport contributes 19%, secondary particulate matter causes 17%, and industrial emissions rise to 14%. Biomass burning drops to 12% during this period. Source: CAQM, Delhi Delhi’s average winter PM2.5 concentration is 178 micrograms/m³, which is more than 35 times the WHO safe guideline of 5, and over four times India’s national standard of 40. Summer levels average 73, which is still nearly 15 times the WHO guideline and almost double the Indian standard. Data is based on 2021-2025 measurements. However, CAQM says that the number of days where pollution was below the daily national standard of 60 micrograms has increased from 97 days in 2018 to 156 in 2025. Why is transport so high? The report points out that transport “repeatedly emerges as the most prominent pollution source within Delhi”. The transport source category includes off and on-road vehicles; petrol, diesel and CNG-powered vehicles. There are several sources and reasons for vehicular pollution being so high: Older fuel standards: Bharat Stage (BS) 4, 3, 2, 1 and pre-BS vehicles are more polluting than the latest, BS 6 standard. Older vehicles: Particularly those operating beyond their regulatory lifespan of 10 or 15 years – for petrol and diesel respectively – are more polluting due to engine deterioration and compromised emission control performance. Fuel type: Diesel vehicles are a major source of particulate matter and oxides of nitrogen and sulphur, whereas CNG vehicles predominantly emit oxides of nitrogen. Traffic congestion: Pollution is determined not just by technology but also by driving conditions. Congested and slow-moving traffic leads to inefficient combustion, resulting in higher emissions per vehicle, whereas operation at optimal speeds enables more efficient combustion and lower emission rates. Government admits critical gaps Significantly, the report concedes several gaps in controlling pollution. Presenting these gaps in a report for the Supreme Court is important because these have rarely been acknowledged at such a high level. First, the report admits the current pollution checks or PUC certificates are “not a true representative of emissions” as they don’t measure particulate matter pollution – although this has been cited repeatedly by the Delhi local government as a measure that controls pollution. Second, it accepts that PM2.5 is the most prominent pollutant that determines Delhi’s air quality index (AQI). This is in sharp contrast to the NCAP, which prioritises the reduction of PM10, not the more lethal PM2.5. Delhi government also has a push to reduce PM10, primarily dust, through the use of hundreds of expensive water sprinklers. Third, the report says that data on the sources of pollution in Delhi’s larger neighbourhood (NCR) is sparse, so the report’s meta-analysis is taken as indicative. Fourth, the supply of grid electricity across Delhi’s neighbourhood is “unreliable” which is why the use of diesel generators (DG) has increased substantially. It calls older or poorly maintained DGs “super-emitters” and warns that they result in direct, ground-level exposure to emissions. Around 6 to 11% of Delhi’s air pollution is caused by “other” sources. These include cremations where wood is used, hotels and restaurants which use solid fuels like wood and coal, aircraft emissions during taxiing, landing and take-off, and brick kilns in and around Delhi. Depending on the season, they are equally dangerous because they create local hotspots close to residential areas. These are a significant challenge because the CAQM says these are highly sensitive to enforcement. What’s the plan to cut Delhi’s pollution? The CAQM has asked four institutes, three of them government-backed, to develop a new emission inventory – a database of how much pollution is being pumped into the air and from which sources. This study will be led by the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), which may raise some questions about a conflict of interest. While the association is under the government’s administrative control, many ARAI officials and members are from major vehicle manufacturers. Given that vehicles are a significant source of pollution, this could compromise ARAI’s ability to assess vehicular pollution. The other three institutes are IIT-Delhi, the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM, Pune), and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). Air pollution beyond Delhi This new push by the Supreme Court to improve Delhi’s air quality could have lessons for the wider area of north India or the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP), which the CAQM calls an emissions hotspot. This is 18% of India’s landmass, home to 40% of the country’s 1.4 billion population, and accounts for 35% of the emissions. A still wider picture comes from the World Bank’s new report, A Breath of Change: Solutions for Cleaner Air in the Indo-Gangetic Plains and Himalayan Foothills. Almost a billion people across five countries – Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan – live in this area, and around one million people die prematurely every year from polluted air. The World Bank calls for regional cooperation, which is easier said than done in one of the world’s most geopolitically sensitive neighbourhoods. India’s capital is roughly in the centre of this region. Fixing Delhi’s air can provide a template and impetus to go big. Image Credits: Chetan Bhattacharji. WHO Member States Urged Not to Politicise Public Health as Pathogen Access Talks Resume 20/01/2026 Kerry Cullinan IGWG co-chair Matthew Harpur and WHO Assistant Secretary General Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu. The World Health Organization (WHO) negotiations on the world’s first Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) system resumed in Geneva on Tuesday – with only two more weeks of formal negotiations left before the May deadline. Symbolically, this week’s talks resumed on the first anniversary of US President Donald Trump’s announcement that his country would no longer be part of the WHO, and amid a flurry of US bilateral agreements with African countries that exchange health aid for access to pathogen information – posing a direct challenge to the PABS system being negotiated. Over the next three days, WHO member states will hold a series of informal and formal talks focusing mainly on the scope and objectives of the PABS system, use of terms and governance issues. Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, WHO Assistant Director-General for Health Emergencies, told the meeting at its start on Tuesday that the negotiations are a priority for WHO. “In an ever-divided world, we are guardians of public health, and we need to protect it from politicisation,” said Ihekweazu. “The future of multilateralism depends on the very discussions you have in this room over the next few months. Let the determination that led you to adopting the [Pandemic] Agreement see you through this week successfully.” Crunch time While acknowledging that divergent views were still evident in the informal meetings held over the past few weeks, “I do see a lot of positive movement that I think we can be very proud of”, he added. “It’s no secret that crunch time has started, and before we know it, the [World Health Assembly] will be upon us. After this week concludes, you will be left with around two weeks of formal meetings. Please use every minute and use the informal period to iron out the differences that persist and come closer together on landing zones.” A PABS system would set out how to share pathogens and their genetic information, along with any benefits that may arise from their use, including the development of vaccines and medicines. Meanwhile, the US has signed 15 MOUs have been signed with African countries – the latest being with Malawi on 14 January. The agreements provide opportunities for US companies to provide logistics, data, and supply-chain support and several have been concluded alongside trade agreements. The MOUs are the precursor to five-year grants that involve a rapid transfer of responsibility for domestic health programmes from the US to donor countries from year two of the agreement. Confusion Over ‘Cancellation’ of Controversial Hepatitis B Trial in Guinea-Bissau 16/01/2026 Kerry Cullinan The Africa CDC’s Professor Yap Boum told the media this week that the controversial trial has been cancelled. A controversial clinical trial on the effects of the hepatitis B vaccine on babies in Guinea-Bissau has been “cancelled”, according to Dr Yap Boum of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, this has been contested by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is funding a Danish group to conduct the study, according to CIDRAP. An HHS official told CIDRAP that researchers are still working on the study protocol, the official said, adding, “we are proceeding as planned.” But Boum told a media briefing on Thursday that there were “ethical challenges” with the trial design, and Africa CDC had engaged with the health ministry of Guinea-Bissau about it. “Our information is that the study has been cancelled,” said Boum, who added that while the continent needs research about vaccines, including hepatitis B, “this has to be done within the norms, so we are glad that at this point, the study has been cancelled”. Boum, Africa CDC’s deputy incident manager for mpox who often stands in for the Africa CDC Director-General at media briefings, added that there would be “more engagement” with Guinea-Bissau. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded Bandim Health Project at the University of Southern Denmark a $1,6 million five-year grant to study the “optimal timing and delivery of monovalent hepatitis B vaccinations on newborns in Guinea-Bissau”, according to the US HHS federal register. The trial aimed to enrol 14,000 newborns in a “randomized controlled trial to assess the effects of neonatal Hepatitis B vaccination on early-life mortality, morbidity, and long-term developmental outcomes”, according to HHS register. Half the babies would be vaccinated at birth, while the other half would get vaccinated six weeks later – which has raised ethical questions from researchers across the globe. However, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended universal birth hepatitis B vaccinations since 2009. Hepatitis B vaccination usually involves a series of three or four injections, and clinical trials have already established the best intervals for the vaccinations. ‘Non-specific effects’ of vaccines One of the leaders of the Bandim Health Project at the University of Southern Denmark, Dr Christine Stabell Benn, is an adviser to the US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which recently resolved to stop recommending hepatitis B vaccines to US newborns. Stabell Benn’s research has focused on the “non-specific effects” (NSE) of vaccines. They have conducted trials involving thousands of children in Guinea-Bissau and Denmark, and assert that all vaccines should also be tested for NSEs. The journal Vaccine recently published a scathing comprehensive review of 13 trials conducted by Bandim, which showed that their trials have been unable to show non-specific effects for measles, tuberculosis, diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough vaccines. “We were surprised to find several instances of questionable research practices, such as unpublished primary outcomes, outcome switching, reinterpretation of trials based on statistically fragile subgroup analyses, and frequent promotion of cherry-picked secondary findings as causal, even when primary outcomes yielded null results,” according to the review, which was headed by Dr Henrik Støvring of the Department of Biomedicine, at Aarhus University in Denmark. Study ‘manipulation’ Meanwhile, several high-profile health experts condemned the trial. “[Robert F Kennedy Jr], the Secretary of Health and Human Services, will soon conduct his own Tuskegee experiment,” US paediatrician Dr Paul Offit, co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine, wrote on his Substack platform. “He has chosen the resource-poor nation of Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, to do it. Guinea-Bissau is currently overwhelmed by hepatitis B virus. About 18% of the population is infected,” added Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a professor of both Paediatrics and Vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania. “RFK Jr. has manipulated the study to support his unsupportable, science-resistant beliefs about harms caused by the hepatitis B vaccine,” added Offit, who noted that as the study is single-blinded, researchers will know which children received a birth dose of the vaccine. “This allows for investigator bias, where the investigator might find vague neurodevelopmental problems in the birth-dose group but not the six-week group,” he added. Professor Gavin Yamey, director of the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health at Duke University, argues that “it is unethical to do a randomized controlled trial in which you withhold a proven, life-saving vaccine from newborn babies”. Currently, babies in Guinea-Bissau only receive the hepatitis B vaccination from six weeks’ old. But some 11% of children in the country are already infected with hepatitis B by the age of 18 months, so the government has resolved to introduce vaccination at birth from 2027, as recommended by the WHO. Bandim says its trial will stop enrolling participants when the government rollout of the hepatitis B vaccine to newborns starts. They will follow their cohort for five years, primarily to compare “overall mortality and hospitalisations,” and “secondary outcomes”, looking at “atopic dermatitis and neurodevelopment”, according to a Bandim media release. US Congressional Leaders Agree to $9.4 Billion for Global Health – Countering Trump Proposal for Deeper Cuts 15/01/2026 Sophia Samantaroy Life-saving vaccines, maternal and child health, and programs fighting TB, malaria, and HIV/AIDS are included in the proposed bill. The $9.4 billion package agreed to by the US Senate and House Appropriations Committees, is more than double the $3.7 billion requested by the Trump Administration, and signals bipartisan support for maintaining significant global health aid – although the package still must be approved by both Senate and House, and could also be vetoed by president following passage. The $9.4 billion package agreed to by Congressional leaders in the US House and Senate is less than the $12.4 billion allocation in 2024 and 2025. But it’s still $5.7 billion more than called for last September by US President Donald Trump in his America First Global Health Strategy. The House and Senate have yet to vote on the spending bill, and face a 30 January deadline to pass the federal funding. The legislation would then have to clear the President’s desk before becoming law. The global health allocations are part of a larger $50 billion foreign aid spending package for the 2026 fiscal year. That foreign aid bill, while a 16% cut from 2024, is nearly $20 billion more than what the Trump Administration initially requested. The broader bill also includes $5.4 billion in funding for humanitarian assistance. Some of the funds from that pot will also be dedicated to health – in areas such as food security and nutrition, shelter protection, and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). And it also includes a nod to the Trump administration’s plan to offer low- and middle-income countries some $11 billion in direct bilateral assistance – some of which will also be channeled into health. The bilateral deals replace some of the assistance provided previously under USAID, which boasted a budget of around $44 billion in 2023, shortly before Trump abruptly dismantled it last year, making the US the world’s largest overseas donor. Funding for HIV/AIDS, malaria, family planning Of the $9.4 billion, some $5.88 billion is dedicated to fighting HIV/AIDS – with about $4.5 billion allocated to PEPFAR (not named here), and the rest to Global Fund, UNAIDS, and related activities. Of the $9.4 billion earmarked in the bill specifically for global health programs, some $5.9 billion would be allocated to HIV/AIDS – with $1.25 billion channelled through the Global Fund to Fight TB, AIDS and Malaria, $45 million to UNAIDS, and $4.5 billion through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the flagship US program founded in 2003. While that is still less than the $7.1 billion level of support to the three agencies under the 2024 Biden administration, it’s a major increase from the $2.9 billion for HIV/AIDS requested by Trump. At the same time, the bill also calls for PEPFAR, founded by former US President George Bush, to transition to a largely self-reliant program of national governments over the coming years. In terms of other global health priorities: $795 million is dedicated to malaria, and $379 million for tuberculosis; $85 million is earmarked for polio. Strikingly, some $524 million for family planning and reproductive health services are also included in the funding package – despite the historic reticence of conservatives to fund such programs. And although the administration has ordered a US withdrawal from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Congress allocated $32.5 million for the organization, as part of the family planning funds. The bill does stipulate that the agency cannot spend these monies on China – and that if the Trump administration makes good on its plan to withdraw from UNFPA, the money should then be transferred to other global health programs. Allocations are earmarked for “Global Health Security,” $615.6 million for organizations like Pandemic Fund and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). These funds could also be used in the event of a public health emergency. Funds will also go to neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and nutrition. New ‘National Security Fund’ also includes health components In another twist, support for family planning, reproductive health and countering child marriage is also supported through a new “National Security Fund” of $6.77 billion that Congress aims to create – to “combat China’s influence” among other things. The fund, which also includes monies for clean cook stoves, a Young African Leaders Initiative, peace process monitoring, trade capacity building, and assorted other priorities, specifies that at least 15% of the fund should go to the African continent. Bipartisan support, but with different takes Remarkably, both sides of the aisle – and congressional chambers – came together for the bill in a show of bipartisanship, and an exertion of Congress’s power of the purse. House and Senate Republicans are positioning the agreement as a win for reducing overall foreign aid spending – in this case by about 16% – while also countering growing Chinese influence and advancing President Trump’s foreign policy vision. The bill is an “unprecedented reduction of spending” while still aligning with the “America First agenda,” said House Appropriations Chair, Representative Tom Cole (R-OK). Cole lauded the foreign aid bill’s larger design, saying it “eliminates wasteful spending on DEI or woke programming, climate change mandates, and divisive gender ideologies at the State Department,” and “holds the United Nations accountable.” The Republican Chair also noted that the bill “confronts human trafficking; provides support, funds, or assistance for Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Taiwan; and denies China access to U.S.-backed resources.” But for those across the aisle, the very act of funding global health programs resists the Trump administration’s fiery aid trajectory. The “[b]ill rejects Trump’s decimation of the U.S. foreign assistance enterprise— renewing bipartisan investments in American leadership and reasserting congressional control; Supports key global health, humanitarian, and development investments and rejects extreme House Republican riders,” reads a summary by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice-Chair of the Senate Appropriation Committee. “While including some programmatic funding cuts, the bill rejects the Trump administration’s evisceration of U.S. foreign assistance programs and reaffirms bipartisan support for the full range of international initiatives long promoted by Congress to advance U.S. interests.” WHO is not funded at all Notably absent in the bill is any mention of funding for the World Health Organization, from which the Trump administration is in the process of withdrawing. Nor, is there provision in the bill for paying the $260.6 million in unpaid dues to the organization – for which the US is in arrears – before the pullout date later this month. See related story here. Member States to Discuss US Withdrawal from WHO as Failure to Pay Fees Violates Agreement This story was updated 16 January to include stipulations on UNPFA funding. Image Credits: WHO, Senate Appropriations. Despite La Niña, 2025 Was One of Warmest Years on Record 14/01/2026 Disha Shetty 2025 was among the top three warmest years on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The year 2025 was among the top three warmest years on record, according to the latest update from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Depending on the data set being used, the year was either the second or third warmest year on record. The UN agency for monitoring the atmosphere also confirmed that the past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record, and ocean heating continues unabated. The global average surface temperature in 2025 was 1.44°C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13°C) above the 1850-1900 average that is used as a pre-industrial era baseline, WMO reported. “The year 2025 started and ended with a cooling La Niña and yet it was still one of the warmest years on record globally because of the accumulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. High land and ocean temperatures helped fuel extreme weather – heatwaves, heavy rainfall and intense tropical cyclones, underlining the vital need for early warning systems,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. This update from the WMO comes less than two months after global leaders met in Brazil’s Belém for the annual UN climate conference, COP30. It confirms that the climate action so far is proving to be woefully inadequate as the streak of extraordinary global temperatures continues unabated. A robust data set Annual global mean temperature anomalies relative to the 1850-1900 average shown from 1850 to 2025 for eight datasets as shown in the legend. What makes this data robust is that it is a consolidated analysis of eight different global datasets. Two of these datasets ranked 2025 as the second warmest year in the 176-year record, and the other six ranked it as the third warmest year. The past three years, 2023-2025, are the three warmest years in all eight datasets. The consolidated three-year average 2023-2025 temperature is 1.48 °C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13 °C) above the pre-industrial era. The past 11 years, 2015-2025, are the 11 warmest years in all eight datasets. “WMO’s state of the climate monitoring, based on collaborative and scientifically rigorous global data collection, is more important than ever before because we need to ensure that Earth information is authoritative, accessible and actionable for all,” said Saulo. The update was timed to coincide with the release of global temperature announcements from the respective dataset providers. One of the eight datasets is one from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the US agency that has had its funding cut by the Trump administration. Other data sets are from the European Union, Japan, China and the UK. Six of the eight datasets are based on measurements made at the weather stations, and by ships and buoys using statistical methods to fill gaps in the data. Two of the datasets combine past observations, including satellite data, with models to generate a consistent time series of multiple climate variables, including temperature. The actual global temperature in 2025 was estimated to be 15.08°C, but there is a much larger margin of uncertainty on the actual temperature at around 0.5°C than on the temperature anomaly for 2025, WMO said. Oceans continue to heat Ocean heat content continued to rise in 2025. Roughly 90% of excess heat in the atmosphere is absorbed by the world’s oceans, warming them in the process. This makes ocean heat a critical indicator of climate change. A separate study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences reports that ocean temperatures were also among the highest on record in 2025, reflecting the long-term accumulation of heat within the climate system. And while warming temperatures affect life on Earth, the warming oceans pose a threat to the coral reefs and life in the water. From 2024-2025, the global upper 2000m ocean heat content (OHC) increased by ∼23 ± 8 Zettajoules relative to 2024, according to the study led by Lijing Cheng with the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. That is around 200 times the world’s total electricity generation in 2024. Regionally, about 33% of the global ocean area ranked among its historical (1958–2025) top three warmest conditions. Another 57% fell within the top five, including the tropical and South Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, North Indian Ocean, and Southern Oceans, underscoring the broad ocean warming across basins. While the global annual mean sea surface temperature (SST) in 2025 was 0.12 ± 0.03°C lower than in 2024, it was 0.49°C above the 1981–2010 baseline, showing long-term warming trends. State of the Global Climate 2025 report A climate change protest While the current update was meant to give an indication of the global temperature trend, WMO’s State of the Global Climate 2025 report to be issued in March will go further. WMO will provide a detailed breakdown of key climate change indicators, including greenhouse gases, surface temperatures, ocean heat, sea level rise, glacier retreat and sea ice extent. The datasets being relied by the WMO provide a near-complete global picture of near-surface measurements using statistical methods to fill gaps in data-sparse areas such as the polar regions. Image Credits: WMO, WMO, WMO, Markus Spiske/ Unsplash. Most Vaccine Hesitancy can be Successfully Overcome, New Lancet Study Finds 14/01/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen A health worker getting vaccinated against COVID-19 in Bulgaria in 2021. Fears over the side effects of COVID-19 jabs, which led to initial vaccine hesitancy, mostly gave way to acceptance in the course of the pandemic, with only a small minority remaining unvaccinated due to deep-seated mistrust, a new major study published in The Lancet finds. For the first time, the study “Profiling vaccine attitudes and subsequent uptake in 1.1 million people in England” compared attitudes towards vaccinations with actual vaccination behaviour on a large scale. Based on the findings, health policy experts call for evidence-based, group-specific and long-term communicative approaches to counter vaccine hesitancy. Many of the initially hesitant individuals chose a wait-and-see approach. They were driven by concerns over side effects and efficacy, but eventually opted for the jab as real-world evidence of safety and efficacy grew. The benefit of vaccination was recognised by the majority of those initially hesitant, mainly due to public health communication, community outreach and vaccine rollout itself. “Our findings suggest that most COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy was rooted in concrete concerns that can be addressed and successfully overcome with time and increasing availability of information,” according to the principal authors, Paul Elliott, who is Chair in Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine at the Imperial College in London, and Marc Chadeau-Hyam, Professor of Computational Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Vaccine hesitancy plummeted once information was available Vaccine hesitancy plummeted with the vaccine rollout and information. According to the data, vaccine hesitancy decreased for the vast majority of initially hesitant individuals in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over time, 3.3% of all participants were categorised as hesitant towards the COVID-19 vaccine. Individuals were classified as “vaccine-hesitant” if they stated they would refuse the vaccine, had already refused it, or had not yet decided. Their number fluctuated, plummeting from 8% in January 2021 to 1.1% at the start of 2022, before rising again to 2.2% in February 2022. This slight rise might be the result of “pandemic fatigue” or a shift in “personal risk perception” in the course of the Omicron wave. The study data is based on the Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission (REACT) studies, which monitored the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in England during the COVID-19 pandemic from 1 May 1, 2020, to 31 March, 2022, in random samples of the population. The researchers linked consecutive survey data from 1.1 million adults in England to official National Health Service (NHS) health records. The participant questionnaires included queries about vaccination status and attitudes toward vaccines, significantly enabling a comparison. However, the results may under-represent the most radical critics, who often avoid scientific surveys. Concrete health concerns caused vaccine hesitancy Vaccine hesitancy was mainly driven by concerns over health concerns, side effects and efficacy. Vaccine hesitancy was mainly grounded in concrete concerns about effectiveness and side effects, perception of low risk from COVID-19, mistrust of vaccine developers, and fear of vaccines – sometimes as a result of misinformation, the researchers found. The most prevalent categories of hesitancy, related to effectiveness and health concerns, declined substantially over time as 65% of hesitant participants received one or more vaccinations by May 2024. The reasons for initial vaccine hesitancy varied by demographic. Men were more likely to perceive themselves as not being at risk (17.9% versus 10.2% of women), while women more frequently cited concerns regarding fertility (21.2% versus 8.4% of men). Younger participants more frequently cited a fear of needles. Socio-economic deprivation and institutional mistrust are primary drivers of the reluctance to get a jab. Notably, Black participants were three times more likely to express hesitation than White participants. Experts interpreting the study also suggest this mistrust is frequently rooted in negative healthcare experiences or historically unequal treatment. Significantly, non-White participants were ultimately no less likely to be vaccinated at a later date. Communicative approaches key to successful campaigns Vaccine hesitancy is best countered by transparent, long-term, and evidence-based information provision, according to public health expert Sarah Eitze, researcher at the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour (IPB) at the University of Erfurt in Germany. Although the researchers did not test the success of specific communication efforts or interventions to shift attitudes toward vaccinations, the findings can be used in public health policy and future vaccination campaigns, according to Sarah Eitze, deputy director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Behavioural Research in Global Health. Transparent, continuous, and evidence-based information provision has proven to be effective, explained Eitze, who is a researcher at the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour (IPB) at the University of Erfurt (Germany). “Optimal communication about vaccination is most successful when we take a more evidence-based, target group-specific and long-term approach,” said Eitze. “The study shows that not every form of vaccine scepticism works in the same way. While uncertainty about information can often be addressed effectively, deeply rooted attitudes of rejection based on mistrust of institutions or science are much more difficult to overcome.” Image Credits: European Union/Martin Matev, Felix Sassmannshausen, European Union/Martin Matev, Lisa Wollenschläger/University of Erfurt. 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.
‘Suspended or Cancelled’: Guinea-Bissau Health Minister Halts Controversial Hepatitis B Trial 22/01/2026 Kerry Cullinan Guinea-Bissau Health Minister Quinhim Nanthote (right), with his director-general, Dr Armando Sifna. A controversial trial to examine various impacts of the hepatitis B vaccine on newborn babies in Guinea-Bissau has been “suspended or cancelled”, the country’s Health Minister, Quinhim Nanthote, told a media briefing convened by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) on Thursday. This is despite recent assertions by the US Health and Human Services (HHS) Department, which is funding the trial, that it was going ahead. Nanthote initially told the briefing that his country’s ethics committee had not yet held a meeting about the trial, but later said that it “did not have the required technical resources” to approve the trial. Nanthote, who addressed the briefing in military fatigues, was only appointed health minister on 29 November 2025, following a military coup three days earlier. He was not part of discussions about the trial, which has been proposed by the Danish research group, Bandim Health Project. According to Bandim’s trial protocol, dated 14 January, “the Guinea-Bissau Committee of Ethics approved the trial on 5 November, 2025, with approval number 036-CNES-INASA-2025”. However, this was before the military coup. Global outrage There has been global outrage over the ethics of the trial, which would only give half the 14,000 babies it aims to enrol a hepatitis B vaccination shortly after birth – despite clinical evidence that early vaccination is highly effective at preventing mother-to-child transmission of the virus, which is the leading global cause of liver disease. Although babies in the country only start to get vaccinated against hepatitis B at six weeks, around 11% of children in the country are already infected with hepatitis B by the age of 18 months,and the government has resolved to introduce vaccination at birth from 2027/8. While Bandim says it will stop its trial before the national rollout, health experts assert that it is unethical to knowingly withhold a proven treatment from a baby born to a mother with hepatitis B (the trial is single-blinded, so researchers will know which babies get the vaccination and which get the placebo). US involvement The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded Bandim a $1,6 million five-year grant to “assess the effects of neonatal Hepatitis B vaccination on early-life mortality, morbidity, and long-term developmental outcomes”, according to the US HHS federal register. Dr Christine Stabell Benn, co-leader of Bandim, is an adviser to the US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which recently resolved to stop recommending hepatitis B vaccines to US newborns. HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr fired most of the ACIP members last year, replacing them with a committee dominated by vaccine critics. For years, Stabell Benn, co-principal investigator of the Guinea-Bissau trial, has researched the “non-specific effects” (NSE) of vaccines. She and colleagues have conducted trials involving thousands of children in Guinea-Bissau and Denmark, and assert that all vaccines should also be tested for NSEs. One of the research aims of their Guinea-Bissau trial is to investigate the effect of the vaccination “on neurodevelopment by five years of age”. This dovetails with Kennedy’s belief that the rise of autism is linked to childhood vaccinations. “RFK Jr. has manipulated the [Guinea-Bissau] study to support his unsupportable, science-resistant beliefs about harms caused by the hepatitis B vaccine,” observed US paediatrician Dr Paul Offit, co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine, on his Substack platform. Role of Africa CDC Africa CDC Director-General Dr Jean Kaseya Africa CDC Director-General Dr Jean Kaseya said that African countries were in “total control” of clinical trials conducted in their countries. However, Africa CDC has developed a 13-step guide to assist countries. “I was talking to the minister [of Guinea-Bissau] who called me three days ago and clearly said, told me: ‘DG, I’m a new Minister. I’m still waiting for the two steps, the National Medicine Regulatory Authority and the National Ethics Committee, to come to brief me and to give me the recommendations. I’m also asking if Africa CDC can come and support us to see this protocol and all other documents, then I can make a decision based on this recommendation’,” Kaseya told the media briefing. He also dismissed a report that unnamed HHS officials had made disparaging remarks about Africa CDC over its contention at a media briefing last week that the trial had been cancelled. “We have our diplomatic relationship with the US. Yesterday, senior people from HHS were talking to senior people from Africa CDC, and I was briefed that they don’t know anything about any statement against Africa CDC,” said Kaseya, who said that his organisation has an “excellent relationship” with the US government. Kaseya added that Africa CDC had decided not to involve itself in the bilateral Memorandums of Understanding that the US was negotiating with African governments under its “America First Global Health Strategy”. However, he said that the implementation of the MOUs would be discussed at a meeting of health and finance ministers that he is convening on 13 February. Not All Diseases Are Equal: How a World Economic Forum Report quietly reshaped the NCD agenda 22/01/2026 Habib Benzian As the World Economic Forum (WEF) met in Davos this week, a new WEF report on NCDs reflects the influences of powerful groups on disease priorities. The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) latest report on acting early on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) signals more than urgency. It signals a shift in what counts. Beneath familiar calls for earlier action sits a quieter move: a re-ordering of NCD priorities themselves. Some diseases now sit firmly at the centre of the agenda. Others, no less prevalent or consequential, are absent or muted. The clearest indicator is the report’s treatment of chronic kidney disease (CKD). CKD is presented, not as a downstream complication, but as a core NCD, positioned comfortably alongside cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and chronic respiratory disease. No extended justification is offered. Its inclusion is just assumed. CKD’s elevation is overdue, but its inclusion in the WEF report also reveals how NCD categories solidify. Diseases move to the centre not only because of burden, but because they align with existing biomedical pathways, specialist care models, insurance logic, and pharmaceutical governance. Seen this way, the report is not simply about acting earlier. It is about which disease problems global health institutions are structurally prepared to organise around. The politics of NCDs NCDs have never been a neutral list. They are the product of political and institutional settlement. Inclusion brings visibility, financing, and organisational ownership. Exclusion does not erase a condition, but it shapes how seriously it is taken in policy, planning, and budgets. What this report suggests is that the settlement is shifting again, quietly rather than through open debate. The contrast between what fits and what does not is striking. Oral health is absent altogether, despite affecting more people globally than all other NCDs combined. Dementia barely registers, even as it reshapes ageing societies and long-term care systems. Air pollution appears only as a generic risk factor, detached from its regulatory implications. Obesity and physical inactivity are acknowledged but they never organise the analysis. Mental health is present, but thinly so. Eye health and several other NCDs are missing entirely. This is not ignorance. The WEF itself has published economic analyses making the case for investing in oral health. It is well aware of dementia, air pollution, and obesity as global challenges. The issue is not whether these conditions matter, it is whether they fit prevailing system architectures. Institutional compromises Debates around expanding the NCD frame, including the so-called 6×6 perspective, were never simply about adding conditions to a list. They exposed how the NCD framework hardened into an institutional compromise, privileging problems that are easier to govern, finance, and narrate. Oral health and others were excluded not because the evidence was weak, but because their inclusion would have unsettled that compromise. What the WEF report suggests is that the frame is being adjusted again, but cautiously. Rather than opening outward to accommodate conditions that strain existing arrangements, it tightens inward around those that reinforce them. CKD aligns neatly with this logic. It can be framed as an extension of diabetes and hypertension. It lends itself to biomedical markers, specialist pathways, and pharmaceutical management. It fits insurance systems and performance frameworks. Crucially, it does not force difficult conversations about food systems, sugar, taxation, or commercial power. It can be absorbed without rewriting the rules. Other conditions are less accommodating. Oral diseases pull sugar into view as a specific commercial determinant, not a vague lifestyle choice. They expose the fragility of private financing and fee-based care, and make inequality impossible to ignore. Dementia collapses the boundary between health and social care. Air pollution pushes responsibility far beyond the health sector. Climate-related exposures, including extreme heat, increasingly shape NCD risk and outcomes, yet remain difficult to absorb into disease-specific prevention frameworks, as they demand action across labour policy, urban design, housing, and climate governance. Obesity, if taken seriously, leads quickly to trade policy and regulation. These are not marginal complications. They are precisely the kinds of questions that strain consensus and unsettle partnerships. Inclusive understanding This quiet consolidation sits alongside longer-standing efforts by groups such as the NCD Alliance to defend a broad and inclusive understanding of NCDs. That advocacy has helped keep multiple conditions visible in political commitments, even as institutional practice increasingly favours a narrower, more governable set of priorities. The institutional setting matters. The WEF operates through public–private convening. Pharmaceutical companies, diagnostics firms, and health-technology actors are not peripheral to its health work; they are part of the room. This does not mean reports are written to serve corporate interests, but it does shape which narratives travel easily and which stall. One contemporary signal reinforces this pattern. This week at the WEF in Davos, a global partnership was announced between Colgate-Palmolive (the leading global manufacturer of oral hygiene products) and the WHO Foundation. At a moment of tightening budgets at WHO, including the loss of dedicated oral-health staff, such arrangements are widely hoped to help stabilise institutional capacity and preserve visibility for conditions otherwise at risk of further marginalisation. Analytically, they reflect the same logic at work: when conditions fall outside the core NCD architecture, they advance through parallel channels rather than through the centre of system reform. The risk is subtle but real. The NCD discourse begins to tilt away from the conditions that most shape lived experience towards those that best fit institutional comfort. Authority shifts not because of burden or equity, but because of governability. CKD did not move to the centre by chance. It arrived because it belongs to the version of NCDs that the global health sector currently finds easiest to manage. Other conditions remain outside, not because they matter less, but because they ask harder questions about responsibility, power, and what health systems are ultimately for. That is what this report reveals. It is not primarily a story about acting early. It is a story about how carefully and quietly the boundaries of action are being redrawn. Habib Benzian is Professor at the University of the Western Cape (Cape Town, South Africa), Noel Martin Visiting Chair at the University of Sydney’s Dental School; and a member of the Lancet Commission on Oral Health. He advises governments and international organisations on health policy and equity. Image Credits: WEF. Gates and OpenAI Team Up to Pilot AI Solutions to African Healthcare Problems 21/01/2026 Kerry Cullinan Community Health Workers attend a training session on HIV prevention in Kirehe, Rwanda. The Gates Foundation and OpenAI announced a $50 million “pilot” on Wednesday to “advance AI capabilities for health” in Africa. Horizon 1000 promises “funding, technology, and technical support” to roll out AI solutions to 1,000 African primary healthcare clinics by 2028. “AI is going to be a scientific marvel no matter what, but for it to be a societal marvel, we’ve got to figure out ways that we use this incredible technology to improve people’s lives,” said Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, in a media release. “The goal is to make [health care] much higher quality, and if possible, twice as efficient as it is today – taking away the paperwork, organising resources so the patient knows what is available and when to come for their appointments,” Gates Foundation CEO Bill Gates told a session at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos on Wednesday. Starting with Rwanda The pilot will start in Rwanda, and later branch out to Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria, Gates added. Rwanda is already exploring the use of AI to help health workers with disease diagnosis, relieve them of onerous administrative tasks, and model the trajectory of diseases. Paula Ingabire, Rwanda’s Minister of Information, Communication and Technology and Innovation, told the WEF that her country has been working on technological solutions for its “pain points” for over two decades. As a start, the country has rolled out internet access to around 97% of its population – a significant achievement in a country where most people live in rural areas. It is currently building “some of the foundational digital infrastructure that is enabling and powering [technological] advancements,” said Ingabire. One of Rwanda’s aims is to use AI to create “decision-support tools” for its 60,000-plus community health workers (CHW) who provide primary healthcare to communities across the country. As around 70% of the cases CHW deal with every year are malaria, the country wants an AI tool to help them to improve diagnosis and to better anticipate when and where to expect malaria cases, said Ingabire. Paula Ingabire, Rwanda’s Minister of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) and Innovation. Rwanda has already used a combination of drones and AI to address malaria – with the drones pinpointing and spraying mosquito breeding sites and AI helping with the prediction and modelling of the disease. Two years ago, Rwanda set itself the goal of quadrupling its health workforce in four years – something it has already almost achieved. “But they’re going to need these tools to support better care delivery. Some of the administrative tasks that they’ve been working on, we can use AI to do that, so they’re more focused on delivering better and targeted care to our people,” Ingabire said. The government also wants to use AI to improve its demand forecasting for health commodities to prevent medicine stockouts. “We started this digital transformation journey more than 15 years ago. We have a lot of data that we’re not using. Building national data intelligence platforms that help us is critical. Once we build these models, they need to be trained on our own data, they need to be context specific, and they need to come in to address real problems.” Ingabire added that her country is also in conversation with the AI company Anthropic, which developed the large language model Claude, “to see how we can have an instant health intelligence platform that then feeds into the entire national health planning systems and allows us to allocate better resources”. AI-based TB screening Global Fund CEO Peter Sands Peter Sands, CEO of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, told the WEF that the fund has invested $170 million over the past four years in AI-based TB screening. This is one of the largest single applications of AI and health, and it is delivering a “very significant impact”, he added. One example of how the Fund has used AI-based TB screening is in refugee camps. “There are well over a million Sudanese refugees in Chad, and we set up mobile clinics with the government of Chad to go into these refugee camps and do screening for TB,” said Sands. As there were no radiologists, “if you want the screening to be interpreted, there is no alternative [but AI]”, he added. However, Sands warned that some “very basic problems” still need to be fixed to enable the rollout of AI-driven solutions – primarily that many African primary health care facilities lack internet connectivity, and some even lack power. He also urged the use of AI to be “framed around problems needing solutions, as opposed to a whole bunch of tools needing a problem to fix” – akin to people “running around with a whole lot of hammers looking for nails”. He added that tools are easier to develop than finding people “who can actually use them and make things happen”. Faster progress in LMICs than wealthy countries? Gates Foundation CEO Bill Gates Gates believes that there may be faster progress with the rollout of AI in healthcare in developing world health than the “rich world” because “the need is so great, and the governments are embracing this and making sure that it’s moving at full speed”. “The $50 million commitment is just the beginning. I believe that people in Africa should have this ‘health advisor’ without having to pay anything for it. It should just be a basic capability available to them. “As you go into the health system, instead of filling out paperwork and redescribing everything, the AI that you’ve been talking to is summarising that… getting rid of the paperwork together.” Sands also believes that low- and middle-income countries could adopt AI tools faster than developed economies, which are more regulated and where AI is more likely to take away jobs. “One of the reasons this may well take off faster in middle-income countries is because there won’t be the resistance from people who say: ‘This has taken my job’ and ‘I don’t want to change the way we do things’, because it’s compensating for the fact that those people don’t exist.” Image Credits: Cecille Joan Avila / Partners In Health. After Court Rebuke, Government Releases Unified Report Identifying Sources of Delhi Pollution 20/01/2026 Chetan Bhattacharji A new government report concedes that vehicles are the most prominent source of pollution within Delhi, and that the mandatory pollution-under-control (PUC) certificates are not a true representative of emissions. DELHI – India’s Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) has identified the main sources of Delhi’s severe air pollution and admitted that there are critical gaps in current control measures, in response to a deadline set by the Supreme Court. The report, completed in a fortnight, synthesises findings from multiple research institutions to create the first unified assessment of what is polluting the capital. The Supreme Court-mandated report reveals that the city’s main air pollution sources are: transport (23%), secondary particulates (27%), and dust (15-27%). Winter PM2.5 levels are 35 times the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, despite decade-long efforts. The report comes after the Supreme Court criticised CAQM on 2 January, for delays in identifying causes and finding long-term solutions to Delhi’s “worsening” air quality. What sets this report apart from earlier studies is that it synthesises previous assessments to arrive at one unified set of numbers. The agency achieved this by bringing together researchers from government agencies, Indian Institutes of Technology, research institutes, NGOs and think-tanks. The Chief Justice of India criticised the CAQM earlier this year, saying that it “appears to be in no hurry either to identify the causes or to find long-term solutions” to Delhi’s pollution. The court added that the CAQM is obligated to bring domain experts together to arrive at a uniform and unanimous opinion on the causes of the “worsening” air quality. Government concedes major gaps The CAQM’s report is also significant because it concedes several critical gaps in Delhi’s pollution control efforts. These range from conceding that PM2.5, or fine particulate matter pollution, is the “worst” pollutant to accepting that the pollution-under-control (PUC) certificates don’t check all key pollutants emitted by vehicles. The panel included experts from government institutions as well as independent research organisations, including the Centre for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), Urban Emission, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). The report has released two important data sets. The first shows that there has been a decline since 2016 in the annual average level of PM2.5. But the trendline (in blue in the chart below) has been almost flat since 2019, the year that the Indian government launched the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP). Delhi’s PM2.5 air pollution has hovered around 100 micrograms per cubic metre for the last seven years, which is 2.5 times India’s safe standard but 20 times the WHO’s safe guidelines. Source: Based on data from CAQM Main sources of Delhi’s air pollution Delhi’s air pollution in winter and summer is starkly different, with winter pollution being more than twice as severe. The largest contributor to Delhi’s winter PM2.5 pollution is secondary particulate matter (27%), tiny particles formed in the air from gaseous emissions from vehicles, industries, and biomass burning. Among primary sources, transport vehicles contribute 23% while biomass burning, including burning solid fuels for cooking and warmth and crop residue burning, adds 20%. Dust from roads, construction, and demolition accounts for 15%, and industrial emissions contribute 9%. In summer, dust becomes the dominant source, causing 27% of PM2.5 levels, driven by dry conditions and construction activity. Transport contributes 19%, secondary particulate matter causes 17%, and industrial emissions rise to 14%. Biomass burning drops to 12% during this period. Source: CAQM, Delhi Delhi’s average winter PM2.5 concentration is 178 micrograms/m³, which is more than 35 times the WHO safe guideline of 5, and over four times India’s national standard of 40. Summer levels average 73, which is still nearly 15 times the WHO guideline and almost double the Indian standard. Data is based on 2021-2025 measurements. However, CAQM says that the number of days where pollution was below the daily national standard of 60 micrograms has increased from 97 days in 2018 to 156 in 2025. Why is transport so high? The report points out that transport “repeatedly emerges as the most prominent pollution source within Delhi”. The transport source category includes off and on-road vehicles; petrol, diesel and CNG-powered vehicles. There are several sources and reasons for vehicular pollution being so high: Older fuel standards: Bharat Stage (BS) 4, 3, 2, 1 and pre-BS vehicles are more polluting than the latest, BS 6 standard. Older vehicles: Particularly those operating beyond their regulatory lifespan of 10 or 15 years – for petrol and diesel respectively – are more polluting due to engine deterioration and compromised emission control performance. Fuel type: Diesel vehicles are a major source of particulate matter and oxides of nitrogen and sulphur, whereas CNG vehicles predominantly emit oxides of nitrogen. Traffic congestion: Pollution is determined not just by technology but also by driving conditions. Congested and slow-moving traffic leads to inefficient combustion, resulting in higher emissions per vehicle, whereas operation at optimal speeds enables more efficient combustion and lower emission rates. Government admits critical gaps Significantly, the report concedes several gaps in controlling pollution. Presenting these gaps in a report for the Supreme Court is important because these have rarely been acknowledged at such a high level. First, the report admits the current pollution checks or PUC certificates are “not a true representative of emissions” as they don’t measure particulate matter pollution – although this has been cited repeatedly by the Delhi local government as a measure that controls pollution. Second, it accepts that PM2.5 is the most prominent pollutant that determines Delhi’s air quality index (AQI). This is in sharp contrast to the NCAP, which prioritises the reduction of PM10, not the more lethal PM2.5. Delhi government also has a push to reduce PM10, primarily dust, through the use of hundreds of expensive water sprinklers. Third, the report says that data on the sources of pollution in Delhi’s larger neighbourhood (NCR) is sparse, so the report’s meta-analysis is taken as indicative. Fourth, the supply of grid electricity across Delhi’s neighbourhood is “unreliable” which is why the use of diesel generators (DG) has increased substantially. It calls older or poorly maintained DGs “super-emitters” and warns that they result in direct, ground-level exposure to emissions. Around 6 to 11% of Delhi’s air pollution is caused by “other” sources. These include cremations where wood is used, hotels and restaurants which use solid fuels like wood and coal, aircraft emissions during taxiing, landing and take-off, and brick kilns in and around Delhi. Depending on the season, they are equally dangerous because they create local hotspots close to residential areas. These are a significant challenge because the CAQM says these are highly sensitive to enforcement. What’s the plan to cut Delhi’s pollution? The CAQM has asked four institutes, three of them government-backed, to develop a new emission inventory – a database of how much pollution is being pumped into the air and from which sources. This study will be led by the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), which may raise some questions about a conflict of interest. While the association is under the government’s administrative control, many ARAI officials and members are from major vehicle manufacturers. Given that vehicles are a significant source of pollution, this could compromise ARAI’s ability to assess vehicular pollution. The other three institutes are IIT-Delhi, the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM, Pune), and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). Air pollution beyond Delhi This new push by the Supreme Court to improve Delhi’s air quality could have lessons for the wider area of north India or the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP), which the CAQM calls an emissions hotspot. This is 18% of India’s landmass, home to 40% of the country’s 1.4 billion population, and accounts for 35% of the emissions. A still wider picture comes from the World Bank’s new report, A Breath of Change: Solutions for Cleaner Air in the Indo-Gangetic Plains and Himalayan Foothills. Almost a billion people across five countries – Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan – live in this area, and around one million people die prematurely every year from polluted air. The World Bank calls for regional cooperation, which is easier said than done in one of the world’s most geopolitically sensitive neighbourhoods. India’s capital is roughly in the centre of this region. Fixing Delhi’s air can provide a template and impetus to go big. Image Credits: Chetan Bhattacharji. WHO Member States Urged Not to Politicise Public Health as Pathogen Access Talks Resume 20/01/2026 Kerry Cullinan IGWG co-chair Matthew Harpur and WHO Assistant Secretary General Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu. The World Health Organization (WHO) negotiations on the world’s first Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) system resumed in Geneva on Tuesday – with only two more weeks of formal negotiations left before the May deadline. Symbolically, this week’s talks resumed on the first anniversary of US President Donald Trump’s announcement that his country would no longer be part of the WHO, and amid a flurry of US bilateral agreements with African countries that exchange health aid for access to pathogen information – posing a direct challenge to the PABS system being negotiated. Over the next three days, WHO member states will hold a series of informal and formal talks focusing mainly on the scope and objectives of the PABS system, use of terms and governance issues. Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, WHO Assistant Director-General for Health Emergencies, told the meeting at its start on Tuesday that the negotiations are a priority for WHO. “In an ever-divided world, we are guardians of public health, and we need to protect it from politicisation,” said Ihekweazu. “The future of multilateralism depends on the very discussions you have in this room over the next few months. Let the determination that led you to adopting the [Pandemic] Agreement see you through this week successfully.” Crunch time While acknowledging that divergent views were still evident in the informal meetings held over the past few weeks, “I do see a lot of positive movement that I think we can be very proud of”, he added. “It’s no secret that crunch time has started, and before we know it, the [World Health Assembly] will be upon us. After this week concludes, you will be left with around two weeks of formal meetings. Please use every minute and use the informal period to iron out the differences that persist and come closer together on landing zones.” A PABS system would set out how to share pathogens and their genetic information, along with any benefits that may arise from their use, including the development of vaccines and medicines. Meanwhile, the US has signed 15 MOUs have been signed with African countries – the latest being with Malawi on 14 January. The agreements provide opportunities for US companies to provide logistics, data, and supply-chain support and several have been concluded alongside trade agreements. The MOUs are the precursor to five-year grants that involve a rapid transfer of responsibility for domestic health programmes from the US to donor countries from year two of the agreement. Confusion Over ‘Cancellation’ of Controversial Hepatitis B Trial in Guinea-Bissau 16/01/2026 Kerry Cullinan The Africa CDC’s Professor Yap Boum told the media this week that the controversial trial has been cancelled. A controversial clinical trial on the effects of the hepatitis B vaccine on babies in Guinea-Bissau has been “cancelled”, according to Dr Yap Boum of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, this has been contested by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is funding a Danish group to conduct the study, according to CIDRAP. An HHS official told CIDRAP that researchers are still working on the study protocol, the official said, adding, “we are proceeding as planned.” But Boum told a media briefing on Thursday that there were “ethical challenges” with the trial design, and Africa CDC had engaged with the health ministry of Guinea-Bissau about it. “Our information is that the study has been cancelled,” said Boum, who added that while the continent needs research about vaccines, including hepatitis B, “this has to be done within the norms, so we are glad that at this point, the study has been cancelled”. Boum, Africa CDC’s deputy incident manager for mpox who often stands in for the Africa CDC Director-General at media briefings, added that there would be “more engagement” with Guinea-Bissau. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded Bandim Health Project at the University of Southern Denmark a $1,6 million five-year grant to study the “optimal timing and delivery of monovalent hepatitis B vaccinations on newborns in Guinea-Bissau”, according to the US HHS federal register. The trial aimed to enrol 14,000 newborns in a “randomized controlled trial to assess the effects of neonatal Hepatitis B vaccination on early-life mortality, morbidity, and long-term developmental outcomes”, according to HHS register. Half the babies would be vaccinated at birth, while the other half would get vaccinated six weeks later – which has raised ethical questions from researchers across the globe. However, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended universal birth hepatitis B vaccinations since 2009. Hepatitis B vaccination usually involves a series of three or four injections, and clinical trials have already established the best intervals for the vaccinations. ‘Non-specific effects’ of vaccines One of the leaders of the Bandim Health Project at the University of Southern Denmark, Dr Christine Stabell Benn, is an adviser to the US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which recently resolved to stop recommending hepatitis B vaccines to US newborns. Stabell Benn’s research has focused on the “non-specific effects” (NSE) of vaccines. They have conducted trials involving thousands of children in Guinea-Bissau and Denmark, and assert that all vaccines should also be tested for NSEs. The journal Vaccine recently published a scathing comprehensive review of 13 trials conducted by Bandim, which showed that their trials have been unable to show non-specific effects for measles, tuberculosis, diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough vaccines. “We were surprised to find several instances of questionable research practices, such as unpublished primary outcomes, outcome switching, reinterpretation of trials based on statistically fragile subgroup analyses, and frequent promotion of cherry-picked secondary findings as causal, even when primary outcomes yielded null results,” according to the review, which was headed by Dr Henrik Støvring of the Department of Biomedicine, at Aarhus University in Denmark. Study ‘manipulation’ Meanwhile, several high-profile health experts condemned the trial. “[Robert F Kennedy Jr], the Secretary of Health and Human Services, will soon conduct his own Tuskegee experiment,” US paediatrician Dr Paul Offit, co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine, wrote on his Substack platform. “He has chosen the resource-poor nation of Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, to do it. Guinea-Bissau is currently overwhelmed by hepatitis B virus. About 18% of the population is infected,” added Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a professor of both Paediatrics and Vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania. “RFK Jr. has manipulated the study to support his unsupportable, science-resistant beliefs about harms caused by the hepatitis B vaccine,” added Offit, who noted that as the study is single-blinded, researchers will know which children received a birth dose of the vaccine. “This allows for investigator bias, where the investigator might find vague neurodevelopmental problems in the birth-dose group but not the six-week group,” he added. Professor Gavin Yamey, director of the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health at Duke University, argues that “it is unethical to do a randomized controlled trial in which you withhold a proven, life-saving vaccine from newborn babies”. Currently, babies in Guinea-Bissau only receive the hepatitis B vaccination from six weeks’ old. But some 11% of children in the country are already infected with hepatitis B by the age of 18 months, so the government has resolved to introduce vaccination at birth from 2027, as recommended by the WHO. Bandim says its trial will stop enrolling participants when the government rollout of the hepatitis B vaccine to newborns starts. They will follow their cohort for five years, primarily to compare “overall mortality and hospitalisations,” and “secondary outcomes”, looking at “atopic dermatitis and neurodevelopment”, according to a Bandim media release. US Congressional Leaders Agree to $9.4 Billion for Global Health – Countering Trump Proposal for Deeper Cuts 15/01/2026 Sophia Samantaroy Life-saving vaccines, maternal and child health, and programs fighting TB, malaria, and HIV/AIDS are included in the proposed bill. The $9.4 billion package agreed to by the US Senate and House Appropriations Committees, is more than double the $3.7 billion requested by the Trump Administration, and signals bipartisan support for maintaining significant global health aid – although the package still must be approved by both Senate and House, and could also be vetoed by president following passage. The $9.4 billion package agreed to by Congressional leaders in the US House and Senate is less than the $12.4 billion allocation in 2024 and 2025. But it’s still $5.7 billion more than called for last September by US President Donald Trump in his America First Global Health Strategy. The House and Senate have yet to vote on the spending bill, and face a 30 January deadline to pass the federal funding. The legislation would then have to clear the President’s desk before becoming law. The global health allocations are part of a larger $50 billion foreign aid spending package for the 2026 fiscal year. That foreign aid bill, while a 16% cut from 2024, is nearly $20 billion more than what the Trump Administration initially requested. The broader bill also includes $5.4 billion in funding for humanitarian assistance. Some of the funds from that pot will also be dedicated to health – in areas such as food security and nutrition, shelter protection, and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). And it also includes a nod to the Trump administration’s plan to offer low- and middle-income countries some $11 billion in direct bilateral assistance – some of which will also be channeled into health. The bilateral deals replace some of the assistance provided previously under USAID, which boasted a budget of around $44 billion in 2023, shortly before Trump abruptly dismantled it last year, making the US the world’s largest overseas donor. Funding for HIV/AIDS, malaria, family planning Of the $9.4 billion, some $5.88 billion is dedicated to fighting HIV/AIDS – with about $4.5 billion allocated to PEPFAR (not named here), and the rest to Global Fund, UNAIDS, and related activities. Of the $9.4 billion earmarked in the bill specifically for global health programs, some $5.9 billion would be allocated to HIV/AIDS – with $1.25 billion channelled through the Global Fund to Fight TB, AIDS and Malaria, $45 million to UNAIDS, and $4.5 billion through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the flagship US program founded in 2003. While that is still less than the $7.1 billion level of support to the three agencies under the 2024 Biden administration, it’s a major increase from the $2.9 billion for HIV/AIDS requested by Trump. At the same time, the bill also calls for PEPFAR, founded by former US President George Bush, to transition to a largely self-reliant program of national governments over the coming years. In terms of other global health priorities: $795 million is dedicated to malaria, and $379 million for tuberculosis; $85 million is earmarked for polio. Strikingly, some $524 million for family planning and reproductive health services are also included in the funding package – despite the historic reticence of conservatives to fund such programs. And although the administration has ordered a US withdrawal from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Congress allocated $32.5 million for the organization, as part of the family planning funds. The bill does stipulate that the agency cannot spend these monies on China – and that if the Trump administration makes good on its plan to withdraw from UNFPA, the money should then be transferred to other global health programs. Allocations are earmarked for “Global Health Security,” $615.6 million for organizations like Pandemic Fund and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). These funds could also be used in the event of a public health emergency. Funds will also go to neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and nutrition. New ‘National Security Fund’ also includes health components In another twist, support for family planning, reproductive health and countering child marriage is also supported through a new “National Security Fund” of $6.77 billion that Congress aims to create – to “combat China’s influence” among other things. The fund, which also includes monies for clean cook stoves, a Young African Leaders Initiative, peace process monitoring, trade capacity building, and assorted other priorities, specifies that at least 15% of the fund should go to the African continent. Bipartisan support, but with different takes Remarkably, both sides of the aisle – and congressional chambers – came together for the bill in a show of bipartisanship, and an exertion of Congress’s power of the purse. House and Senate Republicans are positioning the agreement as a win for reducing overall foreign aid spending – in this case by about 16% – while also countering growing Chinese influence and advancing President Trump’s foreign policy vision. The bill is an “unprecedented reduction of spending” while still aligning with the “America First agenda,” said House Appropriations Chair, Representative Tom Cole (R-OK). Cole lauded the foreign aid bill’s larger design, saying it “eliminates wasteful spending on DEI or woke programming, climate change mandates, and divisive gender ideologies at the State Department,” and “holds the United Nations accountable.” The Republican Chair also noted that the bill “confronts human trafficking; provides support, funds, or assistance for Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Taiwan; and denies China access to U.S.-backed resources.” But for those across the aisle, the very act of funding global health programs resists the Trump administration’s fiery aid trajectory. The “[b]ill rejects Trump’s decimation of the U.S. foreign assistance enterprise— renewing bipartisan investments in American leadership and reasserting congressional control; Supports key global health, humanitarian, and development investments and rejects extreme House Republican riders,” reads a summary by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice-Chair of the Senate Appropriation Committee. “While including some programmatic funding cuts, the bill rejects the Trump administration’s evisceration of U.S. foreign assistance programs and reaffirms bipartisan support for the full range of international initiatives long promoted by Congress to advance U.S. interests.” WHO is not funded at all Notably absent in the bill is any mention of funding for the World Health Organization, from which the Trump administration is in the process of withdrawing. Nor, is there provision in the bill for paying the $260.6 million in unpaid dues to the organization – for which the US is in arrears – before the pullout date later this month. See related story here. Member States to Discuss US Withdrawal from WHO as Failure to Pay Fees Violates Agreement This story was updated 16 January to include stipulations on UNPFA funding. Image Credits: WHO, Senate Appropriations. Despite La Niña, 2025 Was One of Warmest Years on Record 14/01/2026 Disha Shetty 2025 was among the top three warmest years on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The year 2025 was among the top three warmest years on record, according to the latest update from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Depending on the data set being used, the year was either the second or third warmest year on record. The UN agency for monitoring the atmosphere also confirmed that the past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record, and ocean heating continues unabated. The global average surface temperature in 2025 was 1.44°C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13°C) above the 1850-1900 average that is used as a pre-industrial era baseline, WMO reported. “The year 2025 started and ended with a cooling La Niña and yet it was still one of the warmest years on record globally because of the accumulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. High land and ocean temperatures helped fuel extreme weather – heatwaves, heavy rainfall and intense tropical cyclones, underlining the vital need for early warning systems,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. This update from the WMO comes less than two months after global leaders met in Brazil’s Belém for the annual UN climate conference, COP30. It confirms that the climate action so far is proving to be woefully inadequate as the streak of extraordinary global temperatures continues unabated. A robust data set Annual global mean temperature anomalies relative to the 1850-1900 average shown from 1850 to 2025 for eight datasets as shown in the legend. What makes this data robust is that it is a consolidated analysis of eight different global datasets. Two of these datasets ranked 2025 as the second warmest year in the 176-year record, and the other six ranked it as the third warmest year. The past three years, 2023-2025, are the three warmest years in all eight datasets. The consolidated three-year average 2023-2025 temperature is 1.48 °C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13 °C) above the pre-industrial era. The past 11 years, 2015-2025, are the 11 warmest years in all eight datasets. “WMO’s state of the climate monitoring, based on collaborative and scientifically rigorous global data collection, is more important than ever before because we need to ensure that Earth information is authoritative, accessible and actionable for all,” said Saulo. The update was timed to coincide with the release of global temperature announcements from the respective dataset providers. One of the eight datasets is one from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the US agency that has had its funding cut by the Trump administration. Other data sets are from the European Union, Japan, China and the UK. Six of the eight datasets are based on measurements made at the weather stations, and by ships and buoys using statistical methods to fill gaps in the data. Two of the datasets combine past observations, including satellite data, with models to generate a consistent time series of multiple climate variables, including temperature. The actual global temperature in 2025 was estimated to be 15.08°C, but there is a much larger margin of uncertainty on the actual temperature at around 0.5°C than on the temperature anomaly for 2025, WMO said. Oceans continue to heat Ocean heat content continued to rise in 2025. Roughly 90% of excess heat in the atmosphere is absorbed by the world’s oceans, warming them in the process. This makes ocean heat a critical indicator of climate change. A separate study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences reports that ocean temperatures were also among the highest on record in 2025, reflecting the long-term accumulation of heat within the climate system. And while warming temperatures affect life on Earth, the warming oceans pose a threat to the coral reefs and life in the water. From 2024-2025, the global upper 2000m ocean heat content (OHC) increased by ∼23 ± 8 Zettajoules relative to 2024, according to the study led by Lijing Cheng with the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. That is around 200 times the world’s total electricity generation in 2024. Regionally, about 33% of the global ocean area ranked among its historical (1958–2025) top three warmest conditions. Another 57% fell within the top five, including the tropical and South Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, North Indian Ocean, and Southern Oceans, underscoring the broad ocean warming across basins. While the global annual mean sea surface temperature (SST) in 2025 was 0.12 ± 0.03°C lower than in 2024, it was 0.49°C above the 1981–2010 baseline, showing long-term warming trends. State of the Global Climate 2025 report A climate change protest While the current update was meant to give an indication of the global temperature trend, WMO’s State of the Global Climate 2025 report to be issued in March will go further. WMO will provide a detailed breakdown of key climate change indicators, including greenhouse gases, surface temperatures, ocean heat, sea level rise, glacier retreat and sea ice extent. The datasets being relied by the WMO provide a near-complete global picture of near-surface measurements using statistical methods to fill gaps in data-sparse areas such as the polar regions. Image Credits: WMO, WMO, WMO, Markus Spiske/ Unsplash. Most Vaccine Hesitancy can be Successfully Overcome, New Lancet Study Finds 14/01/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen A health worker getting vaccinated against COVID-19 in Bulgaria in 2021. Fears over the side effects of COVID-19 jabs, which led to initial vaccine hesitancy, mostly gave way to acceptance in the course of the pandemic, with only a small minority remaining unvaccinated due to deep-seated mistrust, a new major study published in The Lancet finds. For the first time, the study “Profiling vaccine attitudes and subsequent uptake in 1.1 million people in England” compared attitudes towards vaccinations with actual vaccination behaviour on a large scale. Based on the findings, health policy experts call for evidence-based, group-specific and long-term communicative approaches to counter vaccine hesitancy. Many of the initially hesitant individuals chose a wait-and-see approach. They were driven by concerns over side effects and efficacy, but eventually opted for the jab as real-world evidence of safety and efficacy grew. The benefit of vaccination was recognised by the majority of those initially hesitant, mainly due to public health communication, community outreach and vaccine rollout itself. “Our findings suggest that most COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy was rooted in concrete concerns that can be addressed and successfully overcome with time and increasing availability of information,” according to the principal authors, Paul Elliott, who is Chair in Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine at the Imperial College in London, and Marc Chadeau-Hyam, Professor of Computational Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Vaccine hesitancy plummeted once information was available Vaccine hesitancy plummeted with the vaccine rollout and information. According to the data, vaccine hesitancy decreased for the vast majority of initially hesitant individuals in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over time, 3.3% of all participants were categorised as hesitant towards the COVID-19 vaccine. Individuals were classified as “vaccine-hesitant” if they stated they would refuse the vaccine, had already refused it, or had not yet decided. Their number fluctuated, plummeting from 8% in January 2021 to 1.1% at the start of 2022, before rising again to 2.2% in February 2022. This slight rise might be the result of “pandemic fatigue” or a shift in “personal risk perception” in the course of the Omicron wave. The study data is based on the Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission (REACT) studies, which monitored the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in England during the COVID-19 pandemic from 1 May 1, 2020, to 31 March, 2022, in random samples of the population. The researchers linked consecutive survey data from 1.1 million adults in England to official National Health Service (NHS) health records. The participant questionnaires included queries about vaccination status and attitudes toward vaccines, significantly enabling a comparison. However, the results may under-represent the most radical critics, who often avoid scientific surveys. Concrete health concerns caused vaccine hesitancy Vaccine hesitancy was mainly driven by concerns over health concerns, side effects and efficacy. Vaccine hesitancy was mainly grounded in concrete concerns about effectiveness and side effects, perception of low risk from COVID-19, mistrust of vaccine developers, and fear of vaccines – sometimes as a result of misinformation, the researchers found. The most prevalent categories of hesitancy, related to effectiveness and health concerns, declined substantially over time as 65% of hesitant participants received one or more vaccinations by May 2024. The reasons for initial vaccine hesitancy varied by demographic. Men were more likely to perceive themselves as not being at risk (17.9% versus 10.2% of women), while women more frequently cited concerns regarding fertility (21.2% versus 8.4% of men). Younger participants more frequently cited a fear of needles. Socio-economic deprivation and institutional mistrust are primary drivers of the reluctance to get a jab. Notably, Black participants were three times more likely to express hesitation than White participants. Experts interpreting the study also suggest this mistrust is frequently rooted in negative healthcare experiences or historically unequal treatment. Significantly, non-White participants were ultimately no less likely to be vaccinated at a later date. Communicative approaches key to successful campaigns Vaccine hesitancy is best countered by transparent, long-term, and evidence-based information provision, according to public health expert Sarah Eitze, researcher at the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour (IPB) at the University of Erfurt in Germany. Although the researchers did not test the success of specific communication efforts or interventions to shift attitudes toward vaccinations, the findings can be used in public health policy and future vaccination campaigns, according to Sarah Eitze, deputy director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Behavioural Research in Global Health. Transparent, continuous, and evidence-based information provision has proven to be effective, explained Eitze, who is a researcher at the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour (IPB) at the University of Erfurt (Germany). “Optimal communication about vaccination is most successful when we take a more evidence-based, target group-specific and long-term approach,” said Eitze. “The study shows that not every form of vaccine scepticism works in the same way. While uncertainty about information can often be addressed effectively, deeply rooted attitudes of rejection based on mistrust of institutions or science are much more difficult to overcome.” Image Credits: European Union/Martin Matev, Felix Sassmannshausen, European Union/Martin Matev, Lisa Wollenschläger/University of Erfurt. 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.
Not All Diseases Are Equal: How a World Economic Forum Report quietly reshaped the NCD agenda 22/01/2026 Habib Benzian As the World Economic Forum (WEF) met in Davos this week, a new WEF report on NCDs reflects the influences of powerful groups on disease priorities. The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) latest report on acting early on noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) signals more than urgency. It signals a shift in what counts. Beneath familiar calls for earlier action sits a quieter move: a re-ordering of NCD priorities themselves. Some diseases now sit firmly at the centre of the agenda. Others, no less prevalent or consequential, are absent or muted. The clearest indicator is the report’s treatment of chronic kidney disease (CKD). CKD is presented, not as a downstream complication, but as a core NCD, positioned comfortably alongside cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and chronic respiratory disease. No extended justification is offered. Its inclusion is just assumed. CKD’s elevation is overdue, but its inclusion in the WEF report also reveals how NCD categories solidify. Diseases move to the centre not only because of burden, but because they align with existing biomedical pathways, specialist care models, insurance logic, and pharmaceutical governance. Seen this way, the report is not simply about acting earlier. It is about which disease problems global health institutions are structurally prepared to organise around. The politics of NCDs NCDs have never been a neutral list. They are the product of political and institutional settlement. Inclusion brings visibility, financing, and organisational ownership. Exclusion does not erase a condition, but it shapes how seriously it is taken in policy, planning, and budgets. What this report suggests is that the settlement is shifting again, quietly rather than through open debate. The contrast between what fits and what does not is striking. Oral health is absent altogether, despite affecting more people globally than all other NCDs combined. Dementia barely registers, even as it reshapes ageing societies and long-term care systems. Air pollution appears only as a generic risk factor, detached from its regulatory implications. Obesity and physical inactivity are acknowledged but they never organise the analysis. Mental health is present, but thinly so. Eye health and several other NCDs are missing entirely. This is not ignorance. The WEF itself has published economic analyses making the case for investing in oral health. It is well aware of dementia, air pollution, and obesity as global challenges. The issue is not whether these conditions matter, it is whether they fit prevailing system architectures. Institutional compromises Debates around expanding the NCD frame, including the so-called 6×6 perspective, were never simply about adding conditions to a list. They exposed how the NCD framework hardened into an institutional compromise, privileging problems that are easier to govern, finance, and narrate. Oral health and others were excluded not because the evidence was weak, but because their inclusion would have unsettled that compromise. What the WEF report suggests is that the frame is being adjusted again, but cautiously. Rather than opening outward to accommodate conditions that strain existing arrangements, it tightens inward around those that reinforce them. CKD aligns neatly with this logic. It can be framed as an extension of diabetes and hypertension. It lends itself to biomedical markers, specialist pathways, and pharmaceutical management. It fits insurance systems and performance frameworks. Crucially, it does not force difficult conversations about food systems, sugar, taxation, or commercial power. It can be absorbed without rewriting the rules. Other conditions are less accommodating. Oral diseases pull sugar into view as a specific commercial determinant, not a vague lifestyle choice. They expose the fragility of private financing and fee-based care, and make inequality impossible to ignore. Dementia collapses the boundary between health and social care. Air pollution pushes responsibility far beyond the health sector. Climate-related exposures, including extreme heat, increasingly shape NCD risk and outcomes, yet remain difficult to absorb into disease-specific prevention frameworks, as they demand action across labour policy, urban design, housing, and climate governance. Obesity, if taken seriously, leads quickly to trade policy and regulation. These are not marginal complications. They are precisely the kinds of questions that strain consensus and unsettle partnerships. Inclusive understanding This quiet consolidation sits alongside longer-standing efforts by groups such as the NCD Alliance to defend a broad and inclusive understanding of NCDs. That advocacy has helped keep multiple conditions visible in political commitments, even as institutional practice increasingly favours a narrower, more governable set of priorities. The institutional setting matters. The WEF operates through public–private convening. Pharmaceutical companies, diagnostics firms, and health-technology actors are not peripheral to its health work; they are part of the room. This does not mean reports are written to serve corporate interests, but it does shape which narratives travel easily and which stall. One contemporary signal reinforces this pattern. This week at the WEF in Davos, a global partnership was announced between Colgate-Palmolive (the leading global manufacturer of oral hygiene products) and the WHO Foundation. At a moment of tightening budgets at WHO, including the loss of dedicated oral-health staff, such arrangements are widely hoped to help stabilise institutional capacity and preserve visibility for conditions otherwise at risk of further marginalisation. Analytically, they reflect the same logic at work: when conditions fall outside the core NCD architecture, they advance through parallel channels rather than through the centre of system reform. The risk is subtle but real. The NCD discourse begins to tilt away from the conditions that most shape lived experience towards those that best fit institutional comfort. Authority shifts not because of burden or equity, but because of governability. CKD did not move to the centre by chance. It arrived because it belongs to the version of NCDs that the global health sector currently finds easiest to manage. Other conditions remain outside, not because they matter less, but because they ask harder questions about responsibility, power, and what health systems are ultimately for. That is what this report reveals. It is not primarily a story about acting early. It is a story about how carefully and quietly the boundaries of action are being redrawn. Habib Benzian is Professor at the University of the Western Cape (Cape Town, South Africa), Noel Martin Visiting Chair at the University of Sydney’s Dental School; and a member of the Lancet Commission on Oral Health. He advises governments and international organisations on health policy and equity. Image Credits: WEF. Gates and OpenAI Team Up to Pilot AI Solutions to African Healthcare Problems 21/01/2026 Kerry Cullinan Community Health Workers attend a training session on HIV prevention in Kirehe, Rwanda. The Gates Foundation and OpenAI announced a $50 million “pilot” on Wednesday to “advance AI capabilities for health” in Africa. Horizon 1000 promises “funding, technology, and technical support” to roll out AI solutions to 1,000 African primary healthcare clinics by 2028. “AI is going to be a scientific marvel no matter what, but for it to be a societal marvel, we’ve got to figure out ways that we use this incredible technology to improve people’s lives,” said Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, in a media release. “The goal is to make [health care] much higher quality, and if possible, twice as efficient as it is today – taking away the paperwork, organising resources so the patient knows what is available and when to come for their appointments,” Gates Foundation CEO Bill Gates told a session at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos on Wednesday. Starting with Rwanda The pilot will start in Rwanda, and later branch out to Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria, Gates added. Rwanda is already exploring the use of AI to help health workers with disease diagnosis, relieve them of onerous administrative tasks, and model the trajectory of diseases. Paula Ingabire, Rwanda’s Minister of Information, Communication and Technology and Innovation, told the WEF that her country has been working on technological solutions for its “pain points” for over two decades. As a start, the country has rolled out internet access to around 97% of its population – a significant achievement in a country where most people live in rural areas. It is currently building “some of the foundational digital infrastructure that is enabling and powering [technological] advancements,” said Ingabire. One of Rwanda’s aims is to use AI to create “decision-support tools” for its 60,000-plus community health workers (CHW) who provide primary healthcare to communities across the country. As around 70% of the cases CHW deal with every year are malaria, the country wants an AI tool to help them to improve diagnosis and to better anticipate when and where to expect malaria cases, said Ingabire. Paula Ingabire, Rwanda’s Minister of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) and Innovation. Rwanda has already used a combination of drones and AI to address malaria – with the drones pinpointing and spraying mosquito breeding sites and AI helping with the prediction and modelling of the disease. Two years ago, Rwanda set itself the goal of quadrupling its health workforce in four years – something it has already almost achieved. “But they’re going to need these tools to support better care delivery. Some of the administrative tasks that they’ve been working on, we can use AI to do that, so they’re more focused on delivering better and targeted care to our people,” Ingabire said. The government also wants to use AI to improve its demand forecasting for health commodities to prevent medicine stockouts. “We started this digital transformation journey more than 15 years ago. We have a lot of data that we’re not using. Building national data intelligence platforms that help us is critical. Once we build these models, they need to be trained on our own data, they need to be context specific, and they need to come in to address real problems.” Ingabire added that her country is also in conversation with the AI company Anthropic, which developed the large language model Claude, “to see how we can have an instant health intelligence platform that then feeds into the entire national health planning systems and allows us to allocate better resources”. AI-based TB screening Global Fund CEO Peter Sands Peter Sands, CEO of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, told the WEF that the fund has invested $170 million over the past four years in AI-based TB screening. This is one of the largest single applications of AI and health, and it is delivering a “very significant impact”, he added. One example of how the Fund has used AI-based TB screening is in refugee camps. “There are well over a million Sudanese refugees in Chad, and we set up mobile clinics with the government of Chad to go into these refugee camps and do screening for TB,” said Sands. As there were no radiologists, “if you want the screening to be interpreted, there is no alternative [but AI]”, he added. However, Sands warned that some “very basic problems” still need to be fixed to enable the rollout of AI-driven solutions – primarily that many African primary health care facilities lack internet connectivity, and some even lack power. He also urged the use of AI to be “framed around problems needing solutions, as opposed to a whole bunch of tools needing a problem to fix” – akin to people “running around with a whole lot of hammers looking for nails”. He added that tools are easier to develop than finding people “who can actually use them and make things happen”. Faster progress in LMICs than wealthy countries? Gates Foundation CEO Bill Gates Gates believes that there may be faster progress with the rollout of AI in healthcare in developing world health than the “rich world” because “the need is so great, and the governments are embracing this and making sure that it’s moving at full speed”. “The $50 million commitment is just the beginning. I believe that people in Africa should have this ‘health advisor’ without having to pay anything for it. It should just be a basic capability available to them. “As you go into the health system, instead of filling out paperwork and redescribing everything, the AI that you’ve been talking to is summarising that… getting rid of the paperwork together.” Sands also believes that low- and middle-income countries could adopt AI tools faster than developed economies, which are more regulated and where AI is more likely to take away jobs. “One of the reasons this may well take off faster in middle-income countries is because there won’t be the resistance from people who say: ‘This has taken my job’ and ‘I don’t want to change the way we do things’, because it’s compensating for the fact that those people don’t exist.” Image Credits: Cecille Joan Avila / Partners In Health. After Court Rebuke, Government Releases Unified Report Identifying Sources of Delhi Pollution 20/01/2026 Chetan Bhattacharji A new government report concedes that vehicles are the most prominent source of pollution within Delhi, and that the mandatory pollution-under-control (PUC) certificates are not a true representative of emissions. DELHI – India’s Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) has identified the main sources of Delhi’s severe air pollution and admitted that there are critical gaps in current control measures, in response to a deadline set by the Supreme Court. The report, completed in a fortnight, synthesises findings from multiple research institutions to create the first unified assessment of what is polluting the capital. The Supreme Court-mandated report reveals that the city’s main air pollution sources are: transport (23%), secondary particulates (27%), and dust (15-27%). Winter PM2.5 levels are 35 times the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, despite decade-long efforts. The report comes after the Supreme Court criticised CAQM on 2 January, for delays in identifying causes and finding long-term solutions to Delhi’s “worsening” air quality. What sets this report apart from earlier studies is that it synthesises previous assessments to arrive at one unified set of numbers. The agency achieved this by bringing together researchers from government agencies, Indian Institutes of Technology, research institutes, NGOs and think-tanks. The Chief Justice of India criticised the CAQM earlier this year, saying that it “appears to be in no hurry either to identify the causes or to find long-term solutions” to Delhi’s pollution. The court added that the CAQM is obligated to bring domain experts together to arrive at a uniform and unanimous opinion on the causes of the “worsening” air quality. Government concedes major gaps The CAQM’s report is also significant because it concedes several critical gaps in Delhi’s pollution control efforts. These range from conceding that PM2.5, or fine particulate matter pollution, is the “worst” pollutant to accepting that the pollution-under-control (PUC) certificates don’t check all key pollutants emitted by vehicles. The panel included experts from government institutions as well as independent research organisations, including the Centre for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), Urban Emission, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). The report has released two important data sets. The first shows that there has been a decline since 2016 in the annual average level of PM2.5. But the trendline (in blue in the chart below) has been almost flat since 2019, the year that the Indian government launched the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP). Delhi’s PM2.5 air pollution has hovered around 100 micrograms per cubic metre for the last seven years, which is 2.5 times India’s safe standard but 20 times the WHO’s safe guidelines. Source: Based on data from CAQM Main sources of Delhi’s air pollution Delhi’s air pollution in winter and summer is starkly different, with winter pollution being more than twice as severe. The largest contributor to Delhi’s winter PM2.5 pollution is secondary particulate matter (27%), tiny particles formed in the air from gaseous emissions from vehicles, industries, and biomass burning. Among primary sources, transport vehicles contribute 23% while biomass burning, including burning solid fuels for cooking and warmth and crop residue burning, adds 20%. Dust from roads, construction, and demolition accounts for 15%, and industrial emissions contribute 9%. In summer, dust becomes the dominant source, causing 27% of PM2.5 levels, driven by dry conditions and construction activity. Transport contributes 19%, secondary particulate matter causes 17%, and industrial emissions rise to 14%. Biomass burning drops to 12% during this period. Source: CAQM, Delhi Delhi’s average winter PM2.5 concentration is 178 micrograms/m³, which is more than 35 times the WHO safe guideline of 5, and over four times India’s national standard of 40. Summer levels average 73, which is still nearly 15 times the WHO guideline and almost double the Indian standard. Data is based on 2021-2025 measurements. However, CAQM says that the number of days where pollution was below the daily national standard of 60 micrograms has increased from 97 days in 2018 to 156 in 2025. Why is transport so high? The report points out that transport “repeatedly emerges as the most prominent pollution source within Delhi”. The transport source category includes off and on-road vehicles; petrol, diesel and CNG-powered vehicles. There are several sources and reasons for vehicular pollution being so high: Older fuel standards: Bharat Stage (BS) 4, 3, 2, 1 and pre-BS vehicles are more polluting than the latest, BS 6 standard. Older vehicles: Particularly those operating beyond their regulatory lifespan of 10 or 15 years – for petrol and diesel respectively – are more polluting due to engine deterioration and compromised emission control performance. Fuel type: Diesel vehicles are a major source of particulate matter and oxides of nitrogen and sulphur, whereas CNG vehicles predominantly emit oxides of nitrogen. Traffic congestion: Pollution is determined not just by technology but also by driving conditions. Congested and slow-moving traffic leads to inefficient combustion, resulting in higher emissions per vehicle, whereas operation at optimal speeds enables more efficient combustion and lower emission rates. Government admits critical gaps Significantly, the report concedes several gaps in controlling pollution. Presenting these gaps in a report for the Supreme Court is important because these have rarely been acknowledged at such a high level. First, the report admits the current pollution checks or PUC certificates are “not a true representative of emissions” as they don’t measure particulate matter pollution – although this has been cited repeatedly by the Delhi local government as a measure that controls pollution. Second, it accepts that PM2.5 is the most prominent pollutant that determines Delhi’s air quality index (AQI). This is in sharp contrast to the NCAP, which prioritises the reduction of PM10, not the more lethal PM2.5. Delhi government also has a push to reduce PM10, primarily dust, through the use of hundreds of expensive water sprinklers. Third, the report says that data on the sources of pollution in Delhi’s larger neighbourhood (NCR) is sparse, so the report’s meta-analysis is taken as indicative. Fourth, the supply of grid electricity across Delhi’s neighbourhood is “unreliable” which is why the use of diesel generators (DG) has increased substantially. It calls older or poorly maintained DGs “super-emitters” and warns that they result in direct, ground-level exposure to emissions. Around 6 to 11% of Delhi’s air pollution is caused by “other” sources. These include cremations where wood is used, hotels and restaurants which use solid fuels like wood and coal, aircraft emissions during taxiing, landing and take-off, and brick kilns in and around Delhi. Depending on the season, they are equally dangerous because they create local hotspots close to residential areas. These are a significant challenge because the CAQM says these are highly sensitive to enforcement. What’s the plan to cut Delhi’s pollution? The CAQM has asked four institutes, three of them government-backed, to develop a new emission inventory – a database of how much pollution is being pumped into the air and from which sources. This study will be led by the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), which may raise some questions about a conflict of interest. While the association is under the government’s administrative control, many ARAI officials and members are from major vehicle manufacturers. Given that vehicles are a significant source of pollution, this could compromise ARAI’s ability to assess vehicular pollution. The other three institutes are IIT-Delhi, the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM, Pune), and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). Air pollution beyond Delhi This new push by the Supreme Court to improve Delhi’s air quality could have lessons for the wider area of north India or the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP), which the CAQM calls an emissions hotspot. This is 18% of India’s landmass, home to 40% of the country’s 1.4 billion population, and accounts for 35% of the emissions. A still wider picture comes from the World Bank’s new report, A Breath of Change: Solutions for Cleaner Air in the Indo-Gangetic Plains and Himalayan Foothills. Almost a billion people across five countries – Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan – live in this area, and around one million people die prematurely every year from polluted air. The World Bank calls for regional cooperation, which is easier said than done in one of the world’s most geopolitically sensitive neighbourhoods. India’s capital is roughly in the centre of this region. Fixing Delhi’s air can provide a template and impetus to go big. Image Credits: Chetan Bhattacharji. WHO Member States Urged Not to Politicise Public Health as Pathogen Access Talks Resume 20/01/2026 Kerry Cullinan IGWG co-chair Matthew Harpur and WHO Assistant Secretary General Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu. The World Health Organization (WHO) negotiations on the world’s first Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) system resumed in Geneva on Tuesday – with only two more weeks of formal negotiations left before the May deadline. Symbolically, this week’s talks resumed on the first anniversary of US President Donald Trump’s announcement that his country would no longer be part of the WHO, and amid a flurry of US bilateral agreements with African countries that exchange health aid for access to pathogen information – posing a direct challenge to the PABS system being negotiated. Over the next three days, WHO member states will hold a series of informal and formal talks focusing mainly on the scope and objectives of the PABS system, use of terms and governance issues. Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, WHO Assistant Director-General for Health Emergencies, told the meeting at its start on Tuesday that the negotiations are a priority for WHO. “In an ever-divided world, we are guardians of public health, and we need to protect it from politicisation,” said Ihekweazu. “The future of multilateralism depends on the very discussions you have in this room over the next few months. Let the determination that led you to adopting the [Pandemic] Agreement see you through this week successfully.” Crunch time While acknowledging that divergent views were still evident in the informal meetings held over the past few weeks, “I do see a lot of positive movement that I think we can be very proud of”, he added. “It’s no secret that crunch time has started, and before we know it, the [World Health Assembly] will be upon us. After this week concludes, you will be left with around two weeks of formal meetings. Please use every minute and use the informal period to iron out the differences that persist and come closer together on landing zones.” A PABS system would set out how to share pathogens and their genetic information, along with any benefits that may arise from their use, including the development of vaccines and medicines. Meanwhile, the US has signed 15 MOUs have been signed with African countries – the latest being with Malawi on 14 January. The agreements provide opportunities for US companies to provide logistics, data, and supply-chain support and several have been concluded alongside trade agreements. The MOUs are the precursor to five-year grants that involve a rapid transfer of responsibility for domestic health programmes from the US to donor countries from year two of the agreement. Confusion Over ‘Cancellation’ of Controversial Hepatitis B Trial in Guinea-Bissau 16/01/2026 Kerry Cullinan The Africa CDC’s Professor Yap Boum told the media this week that the controversial trial has been cancelled. A controversial clinical trial on the effects of the hepatitis B vaccine on babies in Guinea-Bissau has been “cancelled”, according to Dr Yap Boum of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, this has been contested by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is funding a Danish group to conduct the study, according to CIDRAP. An HHS official told CIDRAP that researchers are still working on the study protocol, the official said, adding, “we are proceeding as planned.” But Boum told a media briefing on Thursday that there were “ethical challenges” with the trial design, and Africa CDC had engaged with the health ministry of Guinea-Bissau about it. “Our information is that the study has been cancelled,” said Boum, who added that while the continent needs research about vaccines, including hepatitis B, “this has to be done within the norms, so we are glad that at this point, the study has been cancelled”. Boum, Africa CDC’s deputy incident manager for mpox who often stands in for the Africa CDC Director-General at media briefings, added that there would be “more engagement” with Guinea-Bissau. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded Bandim Health Project at the University of Southern Denmark a $1,6 million five-year grant to study the “optimal timing and delivery of monovalent hepatitis B vaccinations on newborns in Guinea-Bissau”, according to the US HHS federal register. The trial aimed to enrol 14,000 newborns in a “randomized controlled trial to assess the effects of neonatal Hepatitis B vaccination on early-life mortality, morbidity, and long-term developmental outcomes”, according to HHS register. Half the babies would be vaccinated at birth, while the other half would get vaccinated six weeks later – which has raised ethical questions from researchers across the globe. However, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended universal birth hepatitis B vaccinations since 2009. Hepatitis B vaccination usually involves a series of three or four injections, and clinical trials have already established the best intervals for the vaccinations. ‘Non-specific effects’ of vaccines One of the leaders of the Bandim Health Project at the University of Southern Denmark, Dr Christine Stabell Benn, is an adviser to the US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which recently resolved to stop recommending hepatitis B vaccines to US newborns. Stabell Benn’s research has focused on the “non-specific effects” (NSE) of vaccines. They have conducted trials involving thousands of children in Guinea-Bissau and Denmark, and assert that all vaccines should also be tested for NSEs. The journal Vaccine recently published a scathing comprehensive review of 13 trials conducted by Bandim, which showed that their trials have been unable to show non-specific effects for measles, tuberculosis, diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough vaccines. “We were surprised to find several instances of questionable research practices, such as unpublished primary outcomes, outcome switching, reinterpretation of trials based on statistically fragile subgroup analyses, and frequent promotion of cherry-picked secondary findings as causal, even when primary outcomes yielded null results,” according to the review, which was headed by Dr Henrik Støvring of the Department of Biomedicine, at Aarhus University in Denmark. Study ‘manipulation’ Meanwhile, several high-profile health experts condemned the trial. “[Robert F Kennedy Jr], the Secretary of Health and Human Services, will soon conduct his own Tuskegee experiment,” US paediatrician Dr Paul Offit, co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine, wrote on his Substack platform. “He has chosen the resource-poor nation of Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, to do it. Guinea-Bissau is currently overwhelmed by hepatitis B virus. About 18% of the population is infected,” added Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a professor of both Paediatrics and Vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania. “RFK Jr. has manipulated the study to support his unsupportable, science-resistant beliefs about harms caused by the hepatitis B vaccine,” added Offit, who noted that as the study is single-blinded, researchers will know which children received a birth dose of the vaccine. “This allows for investigator bias, where the investigator might find vague neurodevelopmental problems in the birth-dose group but not the six-week group,” he added. Professor Gavin Yamey, director of the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health at Duke University, argues that “it is unethical to do a randomized controlled trial in which you withhold a proven, life-saving vaccine from newborn babies”. Currently, babies in Guinea-Bissau only receive the hepatitis B vaccination from six weeks’ old. But some 11% of children in the country are already infected with hepatitis B by the age of 18 months, so the government has resolved to introduce vaccination at birth from 2027, as recommended by the WHO. Bandim says its trial will stop enrolling participants when the government rollout of the hepatitis B vaccine to newborns starts. They will follow their cohort for five years, primarily to compare “overall mortality and hospitalisations,” and “secondary outcomes”, looking at “atopic dermatitis and neurodevelopment”, according to a Bandim media release. US Congressional Leaders Agree to $9.4 Billion for Global Health – Countering Trump Proposal for Deeper Cuts 15/01/2026 Sophia Samantaroy Life-saving vaccines, maternal and child health, and programs fighting TB, malaria, and HIV/AIDS are included in the proposed bill. The $9.4 billion package agreed to by the US Senate and House Appropriations Committees, is more than double the $3.7 billion requested by the Trump Administration, and signals bipartisan support for maintaining significant global health aid – although the package still must be approved by both Senate and House, and could also be vetoed by president following passage. The $9.4 billion package agreed to by Congressional leaders in the US House and Senate is less than the $12.4 billion allocation in 2024 and 2025. But it’s still $5.7 billion more than called for last September by US President Donald Trump in his America First Global Health Strategy. The House and Senate have yet to vote on the spending bill, and face a 30 January deadline to pass the federal funding. The legislation would then have to clear the President’s desk before becoming law. The global health allocations are part of a larger $50 billion foreign aid spending package for the 2026 fiscal year. That foreign aid bill, while a 16% cut from 2024, is nearly $20 billion more than what the Trump Administration initially requested. The broader bill also includes $5.4 billion in funding for humanitarian assistance. Some of the funds from that pot will also be dedicated to health – in areas such as food security and nutrition, shelter protection, and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). And it also includes a nod to the Trump administration’s plan to offer low- and middle-income countries some $11 billion in direct bilateral assistance – some of which will also be channeled into health. The bilateral deals replace some of the assistance provided previously under USAID, which boasted a budget of around $44 billion in 2023, shortly before Trump abruptly dismantled it last year, making the US the world’s largest overseas donor. Funding for HIV/AIDS, malaria, family planning Of the $9.4 billion, some $5.88 billion is dedicated to fighting HIV/AIDS – with about $4.5 billion allocated to PEPFAR (not named here), and the rest to Global Fund, UNAIDS, and related activities. Of the $9.4 billion earmarked in the bill specifically for global health programs, some $5.9 billion would be allocated to HIV/AIDS – with $1.25 billion channelled through the Global Fund to Fight TB, AIDS and Malaria, $45 million to UNAIDS, and $4.5 billion through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the flagship US program founded in 2003. While that is still less than the $7.1 billion level of support to the three agencies under the 2024 Biden administration, it’s a major increase from the $2.9 billion for HIV/AIDS requested by Trump. At the same time, the bill also calls for PEPFAR, founded by former US President George Bush, to transition to a largely self-reliant program of national governments over the coming years. In terms of other global health priorities: $795 million is dedicated to malaria, and $379 million for tuberculosis; $85 million is earmarked for polio. Strikingly, some $524 million for family planning and reproductive health services are also included in the funding package – despite the historic reticence of conservatives to fund such programs. And although the administration has ordered a US withdrawal from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Congress allocated $32.5 million for the organization, as part of the family planning funds. The bill does stipulate that the agency cannot spend these monies on China – and that if the Trump administration makes good on its plan to withdraw from UNFPA, the money should then be transferred to other global health programs. Allocations are earmarked for “Global Health Security,” $615.6 million for organizations like Pandemic Fund and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). These funds could also be used in the event of a public health emergency. Funds will also go to neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and nutrition. New ‘National Security Fund’ also includes health components In another twist, support for family planning, reproductive health and countering child marriage is also supported through a new “National Security Fund” of $6.77 billion that Congress aims to create – to “combat China’s influence” among other things. The fund, which also includes monies for clean cook stoves, a Young African Leaders Initiative, peace process monitoring, trade capacity building, and assorted other priorities, specifies that at least 15% of the fund should go to the African continent. Bipartisan support, but with different takes Remarkably, both sides of the aisle – and congressional chambers – came together for the bill in a show of bipartisanship, and an exertion of Congress’s power of the purse. House and Senate Republicans are positioning the agreement as a win for reducing overall foreign aid spending – in this case by about 16% – while also countering growing Chinese influence and advancing President Trump’s foreign policy vision. The bill is an “unprecedented reduction of spending” while still aligning with the “America First agenda,” said House Appropriations Chair, Representative Tom Cole (R-OK). Cole lauded the foreign aid bill’s larger design, saying it “eliminates wasteful spending on DEI or woke programming, climate change mandates, and divisive gender ideologies at the State Department,” and “holds the United Nations accountable.” The Republican Chair also noted that the bill “confronts human trafficking; provides support, funds, or assistance for Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Taiwan; and denies China access to U.S.-backed resources.” But for those across the aisle, the very act of funding global health programs resists the Trump administration’s fiery aid trajectory. The “[b]ill rejects Trump’s decimation of the U.S. foreign assistance enterprise— renewing bipartisan investments in American leadership and reasserting congressional control; Supports key global health, humanitarian, and development investments and rejects extreme House Republican riders,” reads a summary by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice-Chair of the Senate Appropriation Committee. “While including some programmatic funding cuts, the bill rejects the Trump administration’s evisceration of U.S. foreign assistance programs and reaffirms bipartisan support for the full range of international initiatives long promoted by Congress to advance U.S. interests.” WHO is not funded at all Notably absent in the bill is any mention of funding for the World Health Organization, from which the Trump administration is in the process of withdrawing. Nor, is there provision in the bill for paying the $260.6 million in unpaid dues to the organization – for which the US is in arrears – before the pullout date later this month. See related story here. Member States to Discuss US Withdrawal from WHO as Failure to Pay Fees Violates Agreement This story was updated 16 January to include stipulations on UNPFA funding. Image Credits: WHO, Senate Appropriations. Despite La Niña, 2025 Was One of Warmest Years on Record 14/01/2026 Disha Shetty 2025 was among the top three warmest years on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The year 2025 was among the top three warmest years on record, according to the latest update from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Depending on the data set being used, the year was either the second or third warmest year on record. The UN agency for monitoring the atmosphere also confirmed that the past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record, and ocean heating continues unabated. The global average surface temperature in 2025 was 1.44°C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13°C) above the 1850-1900 average that is used as a pre-industrial era baseline, WMO reported. “The year 2025 started and ended with a cooling La Niña and yet it was still one of the warmest years on record globally because of the accumulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. High land and ocean temperatures helped fuel extreme weather – heatwaves, heavy rainfall and intense tropical cyclones, underlining the vital need for early warning systems,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. This update from the WMO comes less than two months after global leaders met in Brazil’s Belém for the annual UN climate conference, COP30. It confirms that the climate action so far is proving to be woefully inadequate as the streak of extraordinary global temperatures continues unabated. A robust data set Annual global mean temperature anomalies relative to the 1850-1900 average shown from 1850 to 2025 for eight datasets as shown in the legend. What makes this data robust is that it is a consolidated analysis of eight different global datasets. Two of these datasets ranked 2025 as the second warmest year in the 176-year record, and the other six ranked it as the third warmest year. The past three years, 2023-2025, are the three warmest years in all eight datasets. The consolidated three-year average 2023-2025 temperature is 1.48 °C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13 °C) above the pre-industrial era. The past 11 years, 2015-2025, are the 11 warmest years in all eight datasets. “WMO’s state of the climate monitoring, based on collaborative and scientifically rigorous global data collection, is more important than ever before because we need to ensure that Earth information is authoritative, accessible and actionable for all,” said Saulo. The update was timed to coincide with the release of global temperature announcements from the respective dataset providers. One of the eight datasets is one from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the US agency that has had its funding cut by the Trump administration. Other data sets are from the European Union, Japan, China and the UK. Six of the eight datasets are based on measurements made at the weather stations, and by ships and buoys using statistical methods to fill gaps in the data. Two of the datasets combine past observations, including satellite data, with models to generate a consistent time series of multiple climate variables, including temperature. The actual global temperature in 2025 was estimated to be 15.08°C, but there is a much larger margin of uncertainty on the actual temperature at around 0.5°C than on the temperature anomaly for 2025, WMO said. Oceans continue to heat Ocean heat content continued to rise in 2025. Roughly 90% of excess heat in the atmosphere is absorbed by the world’s oceans, warming them in the process. This makes ocean heat a critical indicator of climate change. A separate study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences reports that ocean temperatures were also among the highest on record in 2025, reflecting the long-term accumulation of heat within the climate system. And while warming temperatures affect life on Earth, the warming oceans pose a threat to the coral reefs and life in the water. From 2024-2025, the global upper 2000m ocean heat content (OHC) increased by ∼23 ± 8 Zettajoules relative to 2024, according to the study led by Lijing Cheng with the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. That is around 200 times the world’s total electricity generation in 2024. Regionally, about 33% of the global ocean area ranked among its historical (1958–2025) top three warmest conditions. Another 57% fell within the top five, including the tropical and South Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, North Indian Ocean, and Southern Oceans, underscoring the broad ocean warming across basins. While the global annual mean sea surface temperature (SST) in 2025 was 0.12 ± 0.03°C lower than in 2024, it was 0.49°C above the 1981–2010 baseline, showing long-term warming trends. State of the Global Climate 2025 report A climate change protest While the current update was meant to give an indication of the global temperature trend, WMO’s State of the Global Climate 2025 report to be issued in March will go further. WMO will provide a detailed breakdown of key climate change indicators, including greenhouse gases, surface temperatures, ocean heat, sea level rise, glacier retreat and sea ice extent. The datasets being relied by the WMO provide a near-complete global picture of near-surface measurements using statistical methods to fill gaps in data-sparse areas such as the polar regions. Image Credits: WMO, WMO, WMO, Markus Spiske/ Unsplash. Most Vaccine Hesitancy can be Successfully Overcome, New Lancet Study Finds 14/01/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen A health worker getting vaccinated against COVID-19 in Bulgaria in 2021. Fears over the side effects of COVID-19 jabs, which led to initial vaccine hesitancy, mostly gave way to acceptance in the course of the pandemic, with only a small minority remaining unvaccinated due to deep-seated mistrust, a new major study published in The Lancet finds. For the first time, the study “Profiling vaccine attitudes and subsequent uptake in 1.1 million people in England” compared attitudes towards vaccinations with actual vaccination behaviour on a large scale. Based on the findings, health policy experts call for evidence-based, group-specific and long-term communicative approaches to counter vaccine hesitancy. Many of the initially hesitant individuals chose a wait-and-see approach. They were driven by concerns over side effects and efficacy, but eventually opted for the jab as real-world evidence of safety and efficacy grew. The benefit of vaccination was recognised by the majority of those initially hesitant, mainly due to public health communication, community outreach and vaccine rollout itself. “Our findings suggest that most COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy was rooted in concrete concerns that can be addressed and successfully overcome with time and increasing availability of information,” according to the principal authors, Paul Elliott, who is Chair in Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine at the Imperial College in London, and Marc Chadeau-Hyam, Professor of Computational Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Vaccine hesitancy plummeted once information was available Vaccine hesitancy plummeted with the vaccine rollout and information. According to the data, vaccine hesitancy decreased for the vast majority of initially hesitant individuals in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over time, 3.3% of all participants were categorised as hesitant towards the COVID-19 vaccine. Individuals were classified as “vaccine-hesitant” if they stated they would refuse the vaccine, had already refused it, or had not yet decided. Their number fluctuated, plummeting from 8% in January 2021 to 1.1% at the start of 2022, before rising again to 2.2% in February 2022. This slight rise might be the result of “pandemic fatigue” or a shift in “personal risk perception” in the course of the Omicron wave. The study data is based on the Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission (REACT) studies, which monitored the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in England during the COVID-19 pandemic from 1 May 1, 2020, to 31 March, 2022, in random samples of the population. The researchers linked consecutive survey data from 1.1 million adults in England to official National Health Service (NHS) health records. The participant questionnaires included queries about vaccination status and attitudes toward vaccines, significantly enabling a comparison. However, the results may under-represent the most radical critics, who often avoid scientific surveys. Concrete health concerns caused vaccine hesitancy Vaccine hesitancy was mainly driven by concerns over health concerns, side effects and efficacy. Vaccine hesitancy was mainly grounded in concrete concerns about effectiveness and side effects, perception of low risk from COVID-19, mistrust of vaccine developers, and fear of vaccines – sometimes as a result of misinformation, the researchers found. The most prevalent categories of hesitancy, related to effectiveness and health concerns, declined substantially over time as 65% of hesitant participants received one or more vaccinations by May 2024. The reasons for initial vaccine hesitancy varied by demographic. Men were more likely to perceive themselves as not being at risk (17.9% versus 10.2% of women), while women more frequently cited concerns regarding fertility (21.2% versus 8.4% of men). Younger participants more frequently cited a fear of needles. Socio-economic deprivation and institutional mistrust are primary drivers of the reluctance to get a jab. Notably, Black participants were three times more likely to express hesitation than White participants. Experts interpreting the study also suggest this mistrust is frequently rooted in negative healthcare experiences or historically unequal treatment. Significantly, non-White participants were ultimately no less likely to be vaccinated at a later date. Communicative approaches key to successful campaigns Vaccine hesitancy is best countered by transparent, long-term, and evidence-based information provision, according to public health expert Sarah Eitze, researcher at the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour (IPB) at the University of Erfurt in Germany. Although the researchers did not test the success of specific communication efforts or interventions to shift attitudes toward vaccinations, the findings can be used in public health policy and future vaccination campaigns, according to Sarah Eitze, deputy director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Behavioural Research in Global Health. Transparent, continuous, and evidence-based information provision has proven to be effective, explained Eitze, who is a researcher at the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour (IPB) at the University of Erfurt (Germany). “Optimal communication about vaccination is most successful when we take a more evidence-based, target group-specific and long-term approach,” said Eitze. “The study shows that not every form of vaccine scepticism works in the same way. While uncertainty about information can often be addressed effectively, deeply rooted attitudes of rejection based on mistrust of institutions or science are much more difficult to overcome.” Image Credits: European Union/Martin Matev, Felix Sassmannshausen, European Union/Martin Matev, Lisa Wollenschläger/University of Erfurt. 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.
Gates and OpenAI Team Up to Pilot AI Solutions to African Healthcare Problems 21/01/2026 Kerry Cullinan Community Health Workers attend a training session on HIV prevention in Kirehe, Rwanda. The Gates Foundation and OpenAI announced a $50 million “pilot” on Wednesday to “advance AI capabilities for health” in Africa. Horizon 1000 promises “funding, technology, and technical support” to roll out AI solutions to 1,000 African primary healthcare clinics by 2028. “AI is going to be a scientific marvel no matter what, but for it to be a societal marvel, we’ve got to figure out ways that we use this incredible technology to improve people’s lives,” said Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, in a media release. “The goal is to make [health care] much higher quality, and if possible, twice as efficient as it is today – taking away the paperwork, organising resources so the patient knows what is available and when to come for their appointments,” Gates Foundation CEO Bill Gates told a session at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos on Wednesday. Starting with Rwanda The pilot will start in Rwanda, and later branch out to Kenya, South Africa and Nigeria, Gates added. Rwanda is already exploring the use of AI to help health workers with disease diagnosis, relieve them of onerous administrative tasks, and model the trajectory of diseases. Paula Ingabire, Rwanda’s Minister of Information, Communication and Technology and Innovation, told the WEF that her country has been working on technological solutions for its “pain points” for over two decades. As a start, the country has rolled out internet access to around 97% of its population – a significant achievement in a country where most people live in rural areas. It is currently building “some of the foundational digital infrastructure that is enabling and powering [technological] advancements,” said Ingabire. One of Rwanda’s aims is to use AI to create “decision-support tools” for its 60,000-plus community health workers (CHW) who provide primary healthcare to communities across the country. As around 70% of the cases CHW deal with every year are malaria, the country wants an AI tool to help them to improve diagnosis and to better anticipate when and where to expect malaria cases, said Ingabire. Paula Ingabire, Rwanda’s Minister of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) and Innovation. Rwanda has already used a combination of drones and AI to address malaria – with the drones pinpointing and spraying mosquito breeding sites and AI helping with the prediction and modelling of the disease. Two years ago, Rwanda set itself the goal of quadrupling its health workforce in four years – something it has already almost achieved. “But they’re going to need these tools to support better care delivery. Some of the administrative tasks that they’ve been working on, we can use AI to do that, so they’re more focused on delivering better and targeted care to our people,” Ingabire said. The government also wants to use AI to improve its demand forecasting for health commodities to prevent medicine stockouts. “We started this digital transformation journey more than 15 years ago. We have a lot of data that we’re not using. Building national data intelligence platforms that help us is critical. Once we build these models, they need to be trained on our own data, they need to be context specific, and they need to come in to address real problems.” Ingabire added that her country is also in conversation with the AI company Anthropic, which developed the large language model Claude, “to see how we can have an instant health intelligence platform that then feeds into the entire national health planning systems and allows us to allocate better resources”. AI-based TB screening Global Fund CEO Peter Sands Peter Sands, CEO of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, told the WEF that the fund has invested $170 million over the past four years in AI-based TB screening. This is one of the largest single applications of AI and health, and it is delivering a “very significant impact”, he added. One example of how the Fund has used AI-based TB screening is in refugee camps. “There are well over a million Sudanese refugees in Chad, and we set up mobile clinics with the government of Chad to go into these refugee camps and do screening for TB,” said Sands. As there were no radiologists, “if you want the screening to be interpreted, there is no alternative [but AI]”, he added. However, Sands warned that some “very basic problems” still need to be fixed to enable the rollout of AI-driven solutions – primarily that many African primary health care facilities lack internet connectivity, and some even lack power. He also urged the use of AI to be “framed around problems needing solutions, as opposed to a whole bunch of tools needing a problem to fix” – akin to people “running around with a whole lot of hammers looking for nails”. He added that tools are easier to develop than finding people “who can actually use them and make things happen”. Faster progress in LMICs than wealthy countries? Gates Foundation CEO Bill Gates Gates believes that there may be faster progress with the rollout of AI in healthcare in developing world health than the “rich world” because “the need is so great, and the governments are embracing this and making sure that it’s moving at full speed”. “The $50 million commitment is just the beginning. I believe that people in Africa should have this ‘health advisor’ without having to pay anything for it. It should just be a basic capability available to them. “As you go into the health system, instead of filling out paperwork and redescribing everything, the AI that you’ve been talking to is summarising that… getting rid of the paperwork together.” Sands also believes that low- and middle-income countries could adopt AI tools faster than developed economies, which are more regulated and where AI is more likely to take away jobs. “One of the reasons this may well take off faster in middle-income countries is because there won’t be the resistance from people who say: ‘This has taken my job’ and ‘I don’t want to change the way we do things’, because it’s compensating for the fact that those people don’t exist.” Image Credits: Cecille Joan Avila / Partners In Health. After Court Rebuke, Government Releases Unified Report Identifying Sources of Delhi Pollution 20/01/2026 Chetan Bhattacharji A new government report concedes that vehicles are the most prominent source of pollution within Delhi, and that the mandatory pollution-under-control (PUC) certificates are not a true representative of emissions. DELHI – India’s Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) has identified the main sources of Delhi’s severe air pollution and admitted that there are critical gaps in current control measures, in response to a deadline set by the Supreme Court. The report, completed in a fortnight, synthesises findings from multiple research institutions to create the first unified assessment of what is polluting the capital. The Supreme Court-mandated report reveals that the city’s main air pollution sources are: transport (23%), secondary particulates (27%), and dust (15-27%). Winter PM2.5 levels are 35 times the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, despite decade-long efforts. The report comes after the Supreme Court criticised CAQM on 2 January, for delays in identifying causes and finding long-term solutions to Delhi’s “worsening” air quality. What sets this report apart from earlier studies is that it synthesises previous assessments to arrive at one unified set of numbers. The agency achieved this by bringing together researchers from government agencies, Indian Institutes of Technology, research institutes, NGOs and think-tanks. The Chief Justice of India criticised the CAQM earlier this year, saying that it “appears to be in no hurry either to identify the causes or to find long-term solutions” to Delhi’s pollution. The court added that the CAQM is obligated to bring domain experts together to arrive at a uniform and unanimous opinion on the causes of the “worsening” air quality. Government concedes major gaps The CAQM’s report is also significant because it concedes several critical gaps in Delhi’s pollution control efforts. These range from conceding that PM2.5, or fine particulate matter pollution, is the “worst” pollutant to accepting that the pollution-under-control (PUC) certificates don’t check all key pollutants emitted by vehicles. The panel included experts from government institutions as well as independent research organisations, including the Centre for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), Urban Emission, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). The report has released two important data sets. The first shows that there has been a decline since 2016 in the annual average level of PM2.5. But the trendline (in blue in the chart below) has been almost flat since 2019, the year that the Indian government launched the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP). Delhi’s PM2.5 air pollution has hovered around 100 micrograms per cubic metre for the last seven years, which is 2.5 times India’s safe standard but 20 times the WHO’s safe guidelines. Source: Based on data from CAQM Main sources of Delhi’s air pollution Delhi’s air pollution in winter and summer is starkly different, with winter pollution being more than twice as severe. The largest contributor to Delhi’s winter PM2.5 pollution is secondary particulate matter (27%), tiny particles formed in the air from gaseous emissions from vehicles, industries, and biomass burning. Among primary sources, transport vehicles contribute 23% while biomass burning, including burning solid fuels for cooking and warmth and crop residue burning, adds 20%. Dust from roads, construction, and demolition accounts for 15%, and industrial emissions contribute 9%. In summer, dust becomes the dominant source, causing 27% of PM2.5 levels, driven by dry conditions and construction activity. Transport contributes 19%, secondary particulate matter causes 17%, and industrial emissions rise to 14%. Biomass burning drops to 12% during this period. Source: CAQM, Delhi Delhi’s average winter PM2.5 concentration is 178 micrograms/m³, which is more than 35 times the WHO safe guideline of 5, and over four times India’s national standard of 40. Summer levels average 73, which is still nearly 15 times the WHO guideline and almost double the Indian standard. Data is based on 2021-2025 measurements. However, CAQM says that the number of days where pollution was below the daily national standard of 60 micrograms has increased from 97 days in 2018 to 156 in 2025. Why is transport so high? The report points out that transport “repeatedly emerges as the most prominent pollution source within Delhi”. The transport source category includes off and on-road vehicles; petrol, diesel and CNG-powered vehicles. There are several sources and reasons for vehicular pollution being so high: Older fuel standards: Bharat Stage (BS) 4, 3, 2, 1 and pre-BS vehicles are more polluting than the latest, BS 6 standard. Older vehicles: Particularly those operating beyond their regulatory lifespan of 10 or 15 years – for petrol and diesel respectively – are more polluting due to engine deterioration and compromised emission control performance. Fuel type: Diesel vehicles are a major source of particulate matter and oxides of nitrogen and sulphur, whereas CNG vehicles predominantly emit oxides of nitrogen. Traffic congestion: Pollution is determined not just by technology but also by driving conditions. Congested and slow-moving traffic leads to inefficient combustion, resulting in higher emissions per vehicle, whereas operation at optimal speeds enables more efficient combustion and lower emission rates. Government admits critical gaps Significantly, the report concedes several gaps in controlling pollution. Presenting these gaps in a report for the Supreme Court is important because these have rarely been acknowledged at such a high level. First, the report admits the current pollution checks or PUC certificates are “not a true representative of emissions” as they don’t measure particulate matter pollution – although this has been cited repeatedly by the Delhi local government as a measure that controls pollution. Second, it accepts that PM2.5 is the most prominent pollutant that determines Delhi’s air quality index (AQI). This is in sharp contrast to the NCAP, which prioritises the reduction of PM10, not the more lethal PM2.5. Delhi government also has a push to reduce PM10, primarily dust, through the use of hundreds of expensive water sprinklers. Third, the report says that data on the sources of pollution in Delhi’s larger neighbourhood (NCR) is sparse, so the report’s meta-analysis is taken as indicative. Fourth, the supply of grid electricity across Delhi’s neighbourhood is “unreliable” which is why the use of diesel generators (DG) has increased substantially. It calls older or poorly maintained DGs “super-emitters” and warns that they result in direct, ground-level exposure to emissions. Around 6 to 11% of Delhi’s air pollution is caused by “other” sources. These include cremations where wood is used, hotels and restaurants which use solid fuels like wood and coal, aircraft emissions during taxiing, landing and take-off, and brick kilns in and around Delhi. Depending on the season, they are equally dangerous because they create local hotspots close to residential areas. These are a significant challenge because the CAQM says these are highly sensitive to enforcement. What’s the plan to cut Delhi’s pollution? The CAQM has asked four institutes, three of them government-backed, to develop a new emission inventory – a database of how much pollution is being pumped into the air and from which sources. This study will be led by the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), which may raise some questions about a conflict of interest. While the association is under the government’s administrative control, many ARAI officials and members are from major vehicle manufacturers. Given that vehicles are a significant source of pollution, this could compromise ARAI’s ability to assess vehicular pollution. The other three institutes are IIT-Delhi, the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM, Pune), and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). Air pollution beyond Delhi This new push by the Supreme Court to improve Delhi’s air quality could have lessons for the wider area of north India or the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP), which the CAQM calls an emissions hotspot. This is 18% of India’s landmass, home to 40% of the country’s 1.4 billion population, and accounts for 35% of the emissions. A still wider picture comes from the World Bank’s new report, A Breath of Change: Solutions for Cleaner Air in the Indo-Gangetic Plains and Himalayan Foothills. Almost a billion people across five countries – Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan – live in this area, and around one million people die prematurely every year from polluted air. The World Bank calls for regional cooperation, which is easier said than done in one of the world’s most geopolitically sensitive neighbourhoods. India’s capital is roughly in the centre of this region. Fixing Delhi’s air can provide a template and impetus to go big. Image Credits: Chetan Bhattacharji. WHO Member States Urged Not to Politicise Public Health as Pathogen Access Talks Resume 20/01/2026 Kerry Cullinan IGWG co-chair Matthew Harpur and WHO Assistant Secretary General Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu. The World Health Organization (WHO) negotiations on the world’s first Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) system resumed in Geneva on Tuesday – with only two more weeks of formal negotiations left before the May deadline. Symbolically, this week’s talks resumed on the first anniversary of US President Donald Trump’s announcement that his country would no longer be part of the WHO, and amid a flurry of US bilateral agreements with African countries that exchange health aid for access to pathogen information – posing a direct challenge to the PABS system being negotiated. Over the next three days, WHO member states will hold a series of informal and formal talks focusing mainly on the scope and objectives of the PABS system, use of terms and governance issues. Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, WHO Assistant Director-General for Health Emergencies, told the meeting at its start on Tuesday that the negotiations are a priority for WHO. “In an ever-divided world, we are guardians of public health, and we need to protect it from politicisation,” said Ihekweazu. “The future of multilateralism depends on the very discussions you have in this room over the next few months. Let the determination that led you to adopting the [Pandemic] Agreement see you through this week successfully.” Crunch time While acknowledging that divergent views were still evident in the informal meetings held over the past few weeks, “I do see a lot of positive movement that I think we can be very proud of”, he added. “It’s no secret that crunch time has started, and before we know it, the [World Health Assembly] will be upon us. After this week concludes, you will be left with around two weeks of formal meetings. Please use every minute and use the informal period to iron out the differences that persist and come closer together on landing zones.” A PABS system would set out how to share pathogens and their genetic information, along with any benefits that may arise from their use, including the development of vaccines and medicines. Meanwhile, the US has signed 15 MOUs have been signed with African countries – the latest being with Malawi on 14 January. The agreements provide opportunities for US companies to provide logistics, data, and supply-chain support and several have been concluded alongside trade agreements. The MOUs are the precursor to five-year grants that involve a rapid transfer of responsibility for domestic health programmes from the US to donor countries from year two of the agreement. Confusion Over ‘Cancellation’ of Controversial Hepatitis B Trial in Guinea-Bissau 16/01/2026 Kerry Cullinan The Africa CDC’s Professor Yap Boum told the media this week that the controversial trial has been cancelled. A controversial clinical trial on the effects of the hepatitis B vaccine on babies in Guinea-Bissau has been “cancelled”, according to Dr Yap Boum of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, this has been contested by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is funding a Danish group to conduct the study, according to CIDRAP. An HHS official told CIDRAP that researchers are still working on the study protocol, the official said, adding, “we are proceeding as planned.” But Boum told a media briefing on Thursday that there were “ethical challenges” with the trial design, and Africa CDC had engaged with the health ministry of Guinea-Bissau about it. “Our information is that the study has been cancelled,” said Boum, who added that while the continent needs research about vaccines, including hepatitis B, “this has to be done within the norms, so we are glad that at this point, the study has been cancelled”. Boum, Africa CDC’s deputy incident manager for mpox who often stands in for the Africa CDC Director-General at media briefings, added that there would be “more engagement” with Guinea-Bissau. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded Bandim Health Project at the University of Southern Denmark a $1,6 million five-year grant to study the “optimal timing and delivery of monovalent hepatitis B vaccinations on newborns in Guinea-Bissau”, according to the US HHS federal register. The trial aimed to enrol 14,000 newborns in a “randomized controlled trial to assess the effects of neonatal Hepatitis B vaccination on early-life mortality, morbidity, and long-term developmental outcomes”, according to HHS register. Half the babies would be vaccinated at birth, while the other half would get vaccinated six weeks later – which has raised ethical questions from researchers across the globe. However, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended universal birth hepatitis B vaccinations since 2009. Hepatitis B vaccination usually involves a series of three or four injections, and clinical trials have already established the best intervals for the vaccinations. ‘Non-specific effects’ of vaccines One of the leaders of the Bandim Health Project at the University of Southern Denmark, Dr Christine Stabell Benn, is an adviser to the US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which recently resolved to stop recommending hepatitis B vaccines to US newborns. Stabell Benn’s research has focused on the “non-specific effects” (NSE) of vaccines. They have conducted trials involving thousands of children in Guinea-Bissau and Denmark, and assert that all vaccines should also be tested for NSEs. The journal Vaccine recently published a scathing comprehensive review of 13 trials conducted by Bandim, which showed that their trials have been unable to show non-specific effects for measles, tuberculosis, diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough vaccines. “We were surprised to find several instances of questionable research practices, such as unpublished primary outcomes, outcome switching, reinterpretation of trials based on statistically fragile subgroup analyses, and frequent promotion of cherry-picked secondary findings as causal, even when primary outcomes yielded null results,” according to the review, which was headed by Dr Henrik Støvring of the Department of Biomedicine, at Aarhus University in Denmark. Study ‘manipulation’ Meanwhile, several high-profile health experts condemned the trial. “[Robert F Kennedy Jr], the Secretary of Health and Human Services, will soon conduct his own Tuskegee experiment,” US paediatrician Dr Paul Offit, co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine, wrote on his Substack platform. “He has chosen the resource-poor nation of Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, to do it. Guinea-Bissau is currently overwhelmed by hepatitis B virus. About 18% of the population is infected,” added Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a professor of both Paediatrics and Vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania. “RFK Jr. has manipulated the study to support his unsupportable, science-resistant beliefs about harms caused by the hepatitis B vaccine,” added Offit, who noted that as the study is single-blinded, researchers will know which children received a birth dose of the vaccine. “This allows for investigator bias, where the investigator might find vague neurodevelopmental problems in the birth-dose group but not the six-week group,” he added. Professor Gavin Yamey, director of the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health at Duke University, argues that “it is unethical to do a randomized controlled trial in which you withhold a proven, life-saving vaccine from newborn babies”. Currently, babies in Guinea-Bissau only receive the hepatitis B vaccination from six weeks’ old. But some 11% of children in the country are already infected with hepatitis B by the age of 18 months, so the government has resolved to introduce vaccination at birth from 2027, as recommended by the WHO. Bandim says its trial will stop enrolling participants when the government rollout of the hepatitis B vaccine to newborns starts. They will follow their cohort for five years, primarily to compare “overall mortality and hospitalisations,” and “secondary outcomes”, looking at “atopic dermatitis and neurodevelopment”, according to a Bandim media release. US Congressional Leaders Agree to $9.4 Billion for Global Health – Countering Trump Proposal for Deeper Cuts 15/01/2026 Sophia Samantaroy Life-saving vaccines, maternal and child health, and programs fighting TB, malaria, and HIV/AIDS are included in the proposed bill. The $9.4 billion package agreed to by the US Senate and House Appropriations Committees, is more than double the $3.7 billion requested by the Trump Administration, and signals bipartisan support for maintaining significant global health aid – although the package still must be approved by both Senate and House, and could also be vetoed by president following passage. The $9.4 billion package agreed to by Congressional leaders in the US House and Senate is less than the $12.4 billion allocation in 2024 and 2025. But it’s still $5.7 billion more than called for last September by US President Donald Trump in his America First Global Health Strategy. The House and Senate have yet to vote on the spending bill, and face a 30 January deadline to pass the federal funding. The legislation would then have to clear the President’s desk before becoming law. The global health allocations are part of a larger $50 billion foreign aid spending package for the 2026 fiscal year. That foreign aid bill, while a 16% cut from 2024, is nearly $20 billion more than what the Trump Administration initially requested. The broader bill also includes $5.4 billion in funding for humanitarian assistance. Some of the funds from that pot will also be dedicated to health – in areas such as food security and nutrition, shelter protection, and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). And it also includes a nod to the Trump administration’s plan to offer low- and middle-income countries some $11 billion in direct bilateral assistance – some of which will also be channeled into health. The bilateral deals replace some of the assistance provided previously under USAID, which boasted a budget of around $44 billion in 2023, shortly before Trump abruptly dismantled it last year, making the US the world’s largest overseas donor. Funding for HIV/AIDS, malaria, family planning Of the $9.4 billion, some $5.88 billion is dedicated to fighting HIV/AIDS – with about $4.5 billion allocated to PEPFAR (not named here), and the rest to Global Fund, UNAIDS, and related activities. Of the $9.4 billion earmarked in the bill specifically for global health programs, some $5.9 billion would be allocated to HIV/AIDS – with $1.25 billion channelled through the Global Fund to Fight TB, AIDS and Malaria, $45 million to UNAIDS, and $4.5 billion through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the flagship US program founded in 2003. While that is still less than the $7.1 billion level of support to the three agencies under the 2024 Biden administration, it’s a major increase from the $2.9 billion for HIV/AIDS requested by Trump. At the same time, the bill also calls for PEPFAR, founded by former US President George Bush, to transition to a largely self-reliant program of national governments over the coming years. In terms of other global health priorities: $795 million is dedicated to malaria, and $379 million for tuberculosis; $85 million is earmarked for polio. Strikingly, some $524 million for family planning and reproductive health services are also included in the funding package – despite the historic reticence of conservatives to fund such programs. And although the administration has ordered a US withdrawal from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Congress allocated $32.5 million for the organization, as part of the family planning funds. The bill does stipulate that the agency cannot spend these monies on China – and that if the Trump administration makes good on its plan to withdraw from UNFPA, the money should then be transferred to other global health programs. Allocations are earmarked for “Global Health Security,” $615.6 million for organizations like Pandemic Fund and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). These funds could also be used in the event of a public health emergency. Funds will also go to neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and nutrition. New ‘National Security Fund’ also includes health components In another twist, support for family planning, reproductive health and countering child marriage is also supported through a new “National Security Fund” of $6.77 billion that Congress aims to create – to “combat China’s influence” among other things. The fund, which also includes monies for clean cook stoves, a Young African Leaders Initiative, peace process monitoring, trade capacity building, and assorted other priorities, specifies that at least 15% of the fund should go to the African continent. Bipartisan support, but with different takes Remarkably, both sides of the aisle – and congressional chambers – came together for the bill in a show of bipartisanship, and an exertion of Congress’s power of the purse. House and Senate Republicans are positioning the agreement as a win for reducing overall foreign aid spending – in this case by about 16% – while also countering growing Chinese influence and advancing President Trump’s foreign policy vision. The bill is an “unprecedented reduction of spending” while still aligning with the “America First agenda,” said House Appropriations Chair, Representative Tom Cole (R-OK). Cole lauded the foreign aid bill’s larger design, saying it “eliminates wasteful spending on DEI or woke programming, climate change mandates, and divisive gender ideologies at the State Department,” and “holds the United Nations accountable.” The Republican Chair also noted that the bill “confronts human trafficking; provides support, funds, or assistance for Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Taiwan; and denies China access to U.S.-backed resources.” But for those across the aisle, the very act of funding global health programs resists the Trump administration’s fiery aid trajectory. The “[b]ill rejects Trump’s decimation of the U.S. foreign assistance enterprise— renewing bipartisan investments in American leadership and reasserting congressional control; Supports key global health, humanitarian, and development investments and rejects extreme House Republican riders,” reads a summary by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice-Chair of the Senate Appropriation Committee. “While including some programmatic funding cuts, the bill rejects the Trump administration’s evisceration of U.S. foreign assistance programs and reaffirms bipartisan support for the full range of international initiatives long promoted by Congress to advance U.S. interests.” WHO is not funded at all Notably absent in the bill is any mention of funding for the World Health Organization, from which the Trump administration is in the process of withdrawing. Nor, is there provision in the bill for paying the $260.6 million in unpaid dues to the organization – for which the US is in arrears – before the pullout date later this month. See related story here. Member States to Discuss US Withdrawal from WHO as Failure to Pay Fees Violates Agreement This story was updated 16 January to include stipulations on UNPFA funding. Image Credits: WHO, Senate Appropriations. Despite La Niña, 2025 Was One of Warmest Years on Record 14/01/2026 Disha Shetty 2025 was among the top three warmest years on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The year 2025 was among the top three warmest years on record, according to the latest update from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Depending on the data set being used, the year was either the second or third warmest year on record. The UN agency for monitoring the atmosphere also confirmed that the past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record, and ocean heating continues unabated. The global average surface temperature in 2025 was 1.44°C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13°C) above the 1850-1900 average that is used as a pre-industrial era baseline, WMO reported. “The year 2025 started and ended with a cooling La Niña and yet it was still one of the warmest years on record globally because of the accumulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. High land and ocean temperatures helped fuel extreme weather – heatwaves, heavy rainfall and intense tropical cyclones, underlining the vital need for early warning systems,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. This update from the WMO comes less than two months after global leaders met in Brazil’s Belém for the annual UN climate conference, COP30. It confirms that the climate action so far is proving to be woefully inadequate as the streak of extraordinary global temperatures continues unabated. A robust data set Annual global mean temperature anomalies relative to the 1850-1900 average shown from 1850 to 2025 for eight datasets as shown in the legend. What makes this data robust is that it is a consolidated analysis of eight different global datasets. Two of these datasets ranked 2025 as the second warmest year in the 176-year record, and the other six ranked it as the third warmest year. The past three years, 2023-2025, are the three warmest years in all eight datasets. The consolidated three-year average 2023-2025 temperature is 1.48 °C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13 °C) above the pre-industrial era. The past 11 years, 2015-2025, are the 11 warmest years in all eight datasets. “WMO’s state of the climate monitoring, based on collaborative and scientifically rigorous global data collection, is more important than ever before because we need to ensure that Earth information is authoritative, accessible and actionable for all,” said Saulo. The update was timed to coincide with the release of global temperature announcements from the respective dataset providers. One of the eight datasets is one from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the US agency that has had its funding cut by the Trump administration. Other data sets are from the European Union, Japan, China and the UK. Six of the eight datasets are based on measurements made at the weather stations, and by ships and buoys using statistical methods to fill gaps in the data. Two of the datasets combine past observations, including satellite data, with models to generate a consistent time series of multiple climate variables, including temperature. The actual global temperature in 2025 was estimated to be 15.08°C, but there is a much larger margin of uncertainty on the actual temperature at around 0.5°C than on the temperature anomaly for 2025, WMO said. Oceans continue to heat Ocean heat content continued to rise in 2025. Roughly 90% of excess heat in the atmosphere is absorbed by the world’s oceans, warming them in the process. This makes ocean heat a critical indicator of climate change. A separate study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences reports that ocean temperatures were also among the highest on record in 2025, reflecting the long-term accumulation of heat within the climate system. And while warming temperatures affect life on Earth, the warming oceans pose a threat to the coral reefs and life in the water. From 2024-2025, the global upper 2000m ocean heat content (OHC) increased by ∼23 ± 8 Zettajoules relative to 2024, according to the study led by Lijing Cheng with the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. That is around 200 times the world’s total electricity generation in 2024. Regionally, about 33% of the global ocean area ranked among its historical (1958–2025) top three warmest conditions. Another 57% fell within the top five, including the tropical and South Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, North Indian Ocean, and Southern Oceans, underscoring the broad ocean warming across basins. While the global annual mean sea surface temperature (SST) in 2025 was 0.12 ± 0.03°C lower than in 2024, it was 0.49°C above the 1981–2010 baseline, showing long-term warming trends. State of the Global Climate 2025 report A climate change protest While the current update was meant to give an indication of the global temperature trend, WMO’s State of the Global Climate 2025 report to be issued in March will go further. WMO will provide a detailed breakdown of key climate change indicators, including greenhouse gases, surface temperatures, ocean heat, sea level rise, glacier retreat and sea ice extent. The datasets being relied by the WMO provide a near-complete global picture of near-surface measurements using statistical methods to fill gaps in data-sparse areas such as the polar regions. Image Credits: WMO, WMO, WMO, Markus Spiske/ Unsplash. Most Vaccine Hesitancy can be Successfully Overcome, New Lancet Study Finds 14/01/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen A health worker getting vaccinated against COVID-19 in Bulgaria in 2021. Fears over the side effects of COVID-19 jabs, which led to initial vaccine hesitancy, mostly gave way to acceptance in the course of the pandemic, with only a small minority remaining unvaccinated due to deep-seated mistrust, a new major study published in The Lancet finds. For the first time, the study “Profiling vaccine attitudes and subsequent uptake in 1.1 million people in England” compared attitudes towards vaccinations with actual vaccination behaviour on a large scale. Based on the findings, health policy experts call for evidence-based, group-specific and long-term communicative approaches to counter vaccine hesitancy. Many of the initially hesitant individuals chose a wait-and-see approach. They were driven by concerns over side effects and efficacy, but eventually opted for the jab as real-world evidence of safety and efficacy grew. The benefit of vaccination was recognised by the majority of those initially hesitant, mainly due to public health communication, community outreach and vaccine rollout itself. “Our findings suggest that most COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy was rooted in concrete concerns that can be addressed and successfully overcome with time and increasing availability of information,” according to the principal authors, Paul Elliott, who is Chair in Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine at the Imperial College in London, and Marc Chadeau-Hyam, Professor of Computational Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Vaccine hesitancy plummeted once information was available Vaccine hesitancy plummeted with the vaccine rollout and information. According to the data, vaccine hesitancy decreased for the vast majority of initially hesitant individuals in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over time, 3.3% of all participants were categorised as hesitant towards the COVID-19 vaccine. Individuals were classified as “vaccine-hesitant” if they stated they would refuse the vaccine, had already refused it, or had not yet decided. Their number fluctuated, plummeting from 8% in January 2021 to 1.1% at the start of 2022, before rising again to 2.2% in February 2022. This slight rise might be the result of “pandemic fatigue” or a shift in “personal risk perception” in the course of the Omicron wave. The study data is based on the Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission (REACT) studies, which monitored the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in England during the COVID-19 pandemic from 1 May 1, 2020, to 31 March, 2022, in random samples of the population. The researchers linked consecutive survey data from 1.1 million adults in England to official National Health Service (NHS) health records. The participant questionnaires included queries about vaccination status and attitudes toward vaccines, significantly enabling a comparison. However, the results may under-represent the most radical critics, who often avoid scientific surveys. Concrete health concerns caused vaccine hesitancy Vaccine hesitancy was mainly driven by concerns over health concerns, side effects and efficacy. Vaccine hesitancy was mainly grounded in concrete concerns about effectiveness and side effects, perception of low risk from COVID-19, mistrust of vaccine developers, and fear of vaccines – sometimes as a result of misinformation, the researchers found. The most prevalent categories of hesitancy, related to effectiveness and health concerns, declined substantially over time as 65% of hesitant participants received one or more vaccinations by May 2024. The reasons for initial vaccine hesitancy varied by demographic. Men were more likely to perceive themselves as not being at risk (17.9% versus 10.2% of women), while women more frequently cited concerns regarding fertility (21.2% versus 8.4% of men). Younger participants more frequently cited a fear of needles. Socio-economic deprivation and institutional mistrust are primary drivers of the reluctance to get a jab. Notably, Black participants were three times more likely to express hesitation than White participants. Experts interpreting the study also suggest this mistrust is frequently rooted in negative healthcare experiences or historically unequal treatment. Significantly, non-White participants were ultimately no less likely to be vaccinated at a later date. Communicative approaches key to successful campaigns Vaccine hesitancy is best countered by transparent, long-term, and evidence-based information provision, according to public health expert Sarah Eitze, researcher at the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour (IPB) at the University of Erfurt in Germany. Although the researchers did not test the success of specific communication efforts or interventions to shift attitudes toward vaccinations, the findings can be used in public health policy and future vaccination campaigns, according to Sarah Eitze, deputy director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Behavioural Research in Global Health. Transparent, continuous, and evidence-based information provision has proven to be effective, explained Eitze, who is a researcher at the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour (IPB) at the University of Erfurt (Germany). “Optimal communication about vaccination is most successful when we take a more evidence-based, target group-specific and long-term approach,” said Eitze. “The study shows that not every form of vaccine scepticism works in the same way. While uncertainty about information can often be addressed effectively, deeply rooted attitudes of rejection based on mistrust of institutions or science are much more difficult to overcome.” Image Credits: European Union/Martin Matev, Felix Sassmannshausen, European Union/Martin Matev, Lisa Wollenschläger/University of Erfurt. 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.
After Court Rebuke, Government Releases Unified Report Identifying Sources of Delhi Pollution 20/01/2026 Chetan Bhattacharji A new government report concedes that vehicles are the most prominent source of pollution within Delhi, and that the mandatory pollution-under-control (PUC) certificates are not a true representative of emissions. DELHI – India’s Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) has identified the main sources of Delhi’s severe air pollution and admitted that there are critical gaps in current control measures, in response to a deadline set by the Supreme Court. The report, completed in a fortnight, synthesises findings from multiple research institutions to create the first unified assessment of what is polluting the capital. The Supreme Court-mandated report reveals that the city’s main air pollution sources are: transport (23%), secondary particulates (27%), and dust (15-27%). Winter PM2.5 levels are 35 times the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, despite decade-long efforts. The report comes after the Supreme Court criticised CAQM on 2 January, for delays in identifying causes and finding long-term solutions to Delhi’s “worsening” air quality. What sets this report apart from earlier studies is that it synthesises previous assessments to arrive at one unified set of numbers. The agency achieved this by bringing together researchers from government agencies, Indian Institutes of Technology, research institutes, NGOs and think-tanks. The Chief Justice of India criticised the CAQM earlier this year, saying that it “appears to be in no hurry either to identify the causes or to find long-term solutions” to Delhi’s pollution. The court added that the CAQM is obligated to bring domain experts together to arrive at a uniform and unanimous opinion on the causes of the “worsening” air quality. Government concedes major gaps The CAQM’s report is also significant because it concedes several critical gaps in Delhi’s pollution control efforts. These range from conceding that PM2.5, or fine particulate matter pollution, is the “worst” pollutant to accepting that the pollution-under-control (PUC) certificates don’t check all key pollutants emitted by vehicles. The panel included experts from government institutions as well as independent research organisations, including the Centre for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), Urban Emission, Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). The report has released two important data sets. The first shows that there has been a decline since 2016 in the annual average level of PM2.5. But the trendline (in blue in the chart below) has been almost flat since 2019, the year that the Indian government launched the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP). Delhi’s PM2.5 air pollution has hovered around 100 micrograms per cubic metre for the last seven years, which is 2.5 times India’s safe standard but 20 times the WHO’s safe guidelines. Source: Based on data from CAQM Main sources of Delhi’s air pollution Delhi’s air pollution in winter and summer is starkly different, with winter pollution being more than twice as severe. The largest contributor to Delhi’s winter PM2.5 pollution is secondary particulate matter (27%), tiny particles formed in the air from gaseous emissions from vehicles, industries, and biomass burning. Among primary sources, transport vehicles contribute 23% while biomass burning, including burning solid fuels for cooking and warmth and crop residue burning, adds 20%. Dust from roads, construction, and demolition accounts for 15%, and industrial emissions contribute 9%. In summer, dust becomes the dominant source, causing 27% of PM2.5 levels, driven by dry conditions and construction activity. Transport contributes 19%, secondary particulate matter causes 17%, and industrial emissions rise to 14%. Biomass burning drops to 12% during this period. Source: CAQM, Delhi Delhi’s average winter PM2.5 concentration is 178 micrograms/m³, which is more than 35 times the WHO safe guideline of 5, and over four times India’s national standard of 40. Summer levels average 73, which is still nearly 15 times the WHO guideline and almost double the Indian standard. Data is based on 2021-2025 measurements. However, CAQM says that the number of days where pollution was below the daily national standard of 60 micrograms has increased from 97 days in 2018 to 156 in 2025. Why is transport so high? The report points out that transport “repeatedly emerges as the most prominent pollution source within Delhi”. The transport source category includes off and on-road vehicles; petrol, diesel and CNG-powered vehicles. There are several sources and reasons for vehicular pollution being so high: Older fuel standards: Bharat Stage (BS) 4, 3, 2, 1 and pre-BS vehicles are more polluting than the latest, BS 6 standard. Older vehicles: Particularly those operating beyond their regulatory lifespan of 10 or 15 years – for petrol and diesel respectively – are more polluting due to engine deterioration and compromised emission control performance. Fuel type: Diesel vehicles are a major source of particulate matter and oxides of nitrogen and sulphur, whereas CNG vehicles predominantly emit oxides of nitrogen. Traffic congestion: Pollution is determined not just by technology but also by driving conditions. Congested and slow-moving traffic leads to inefficient combustion, resulting in higher emissions per vehicle, whereas operation at optimal speeds enables more efficient combustion and lower emission rates. Government admits critical gaps Significantly, the report concedes several gaps in controlling pollution. Presenting these gaps in a report for the Supreme Court is important because these have rarely been acknowledged at such a high level. First, the report admits the current pollution checks or PUC certificates are “not a true representative of emissions” as they don’t measure particulate matter pollution – although this has been cited repeatedly by the Delhi local government as a measure that controls pollution. Second, it accepts that PM2.5 is the most prominent pollutant that determines Delhi’s air quality index (AQI). This is in sharp contrast to the NCAP, which prioritises the reduction of PM10, not the more lethal PM2.5. Delhi government also has a push to reduce PM10, primarily dust, through the use of hundreds of expensive water sprinklers. Third, the report says that data on the sources of pollution in Delhi’s larger neighbourhood (NCR) is sparse, so the report’s meta-analysis is taken as indicative. Fourth, the supply of grid electricity across Delhi’s neighbourhood is “unreliable” which is why the use of diesel generators (DG) has increased substantially. It calls older or poorly maintained DGs “super-emitters” and warns that they result in direct, ground-level exposure to emissions. Around 6 to 11% of Delhi’s air pollution is caused by “other” sources. These include cremations where wood is used, hotels and restaurants which use solid fuels like wood and coal, aircraft emissions during taxiing, landing and take-off, and brick kilns in and around Delhi. Depending on the season, they are equally dangerous because they create local hotspots close to residential areas. These are a significant challenge because the CAQM says these are highly sensitive to enforcement. What’s the plan to cut Delhi’s pollution? The CAQM has asked four institutes, three of them government-backed, to develop a new emission inventory – a database of how much pollution is being pumped into the air and from which sources. This study will be led by the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI), which may raise some questions about a conflict of interest. While the association is under the government’s administrative control, many ARAI officials and members are from major vehicle manufacturers. Given that vehicles are a significant source of pollution, this could compromise ARAI’s ability to assess vehicular pollution. The other three institutes are IIT-Delhi, the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM, Pune), and The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). Air pollution beyond Delhi This new push by the Supreme Court to improve Delhi’s air quality could have lessons for the wider area of north India or the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP), which the CAQM calls an emissions hotspot. This is 18% of India’s landmass, home to 40% of the country’s 1.4 billion population, and accounts for 35% of the emissions. A still wider picture comes from the World Bank’s new report, A Breath of Change: Solutions for Cleaner Air in the Indo-Gangetic Plains and Himalayan Foothills. Almost a billion people across five countries – Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan – live in this area, and around one million people die prematurely every year from polluted air. The World Bank calls for regional cooperation, which is easier said than done in one of the world’s most geopolitically sensitive neighbourhoods. India’s capital is roughly in the centre of this region. Fixing Delhi’s air can provide a template and impetus to go big. Image Credits: Chetan Bhattacharji. WHO Member States Urged Not to Politicise Public Health as Pathogen Access Talks Resume 20/01/2026 Kerry Cullinan IGWG co-chair Matthew Harpur and WHO Assistant Secretary General Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu. The World Health Organization (WHO) negotiations on the world’s first Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) system resumed in Geneva on Tuesday – with only two more weeks of formal negotiations left before the May deadline. Symbolically, this week’s talks resumed on the first anniversary of US President Donald Trump’s announcement that his country would no longer be part of the WHO, and amid a flurry of US bilateral agreements with African countries that exchange health aid for access to pathogen information – posing a direct challenge to the PABS system being negotiated. Over the next three days, WHO member states will hold a series of informal and formal talks focusing mainly on the scope and objectives of the PABS system, use of terms and governance issues. Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, WHO Assistant Director-General for Health Emergencies, told the meeting at its start on Tuesday that the negotiations are a priority for WHO. “In an ever-divided world, we are guardians of public health, and we need to protect it from politicisation,” said Ihekweazu. “The future of multilateralism depends on the very discussions you have in this room over the next few months. Let the determination that led you to adopting the [Pandemic] Agreement see you through this week successfully.” Crunch time While acknowledging that divergent views were still evident in the informal meetings held over the past few weeks, “I do see a lot of positive movement that I think we can be very proud of”, he added. “It’s no secret that crunch time has started, and before we know it, the [World Health Assembly] will be upon us. After this week concludes, you will be left with around two weeks of formal meetings. Please use every minute and use the informal period to iron out the differences that persist and come closer together on landing zones.” A PABS system would set out how to share pathogens and their genetic information, along with any benefits that may arise from their use, including the development of vaccines and medicines. Meanwhile, the US has signed 15 MOUs have been signed with African countries – the latest being with Malawi on 14 January. The agreements provide opportunities for US companies to provide logistics, data, and supply-chain support and several have been concluded alongside trade agreements. The MOUs are the precursor to five-year grants that involve a rapid transfer of responsibility for domestic health programmes from the US to donor countries from year two of the agreement. Confusion Over ‘Cancellation’ of Controversial Hepatitis B Trial in Guinea-Bissau 16/01/2026 Kerry Cullinan The Africa CDC’s Professor Yap Boum told the media this week that the controversial trial has been cancelled. A controversial clinical trial on the effects of the hepatitis B vaccine on babies in Guinea-Bissau has been “cancelled”, according to Dr Yap Boum of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, this has been contested by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is funding a Danish group to conduct the study, according to CIDRAP. An HHS official told CIDRAP that researchers are still working on the study protocol, the official said, adding, “we are proceeding as planned.” But Boum told a media briefing on Thursday that there were “ethical challenges” with the trial design, and Africa CDC had engaged with the health ministry of Guinea-Bissau about it. “Our information is that the study has been cancelled,” said Boum, who added that while the continent needs research about vaccines, including hepatitis B, “this has to be done within the norms, so we are glad that at this point, the study has been cancelled”. Boum, Africa CDC’s deputy incident manager for mpox who often stands in for the Africa CDC Director-General at media briefings, added that there would be “more engagement” with Guinea-Bissau. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded Bandim Health Project at the University of Southern Denmark a $1,6 million five-year grant to study the “optimal timing and delivery of monovalent hepatitis B vaccinations on newborns in Guinea-Bissau”, according to the US HHS federal register. The trial aimed to enrol 14,000 newborns in a “randomized controlled trial to assess the effects of neonatal Hepatitis B vaccination on early-life mortality, morbidity, and long-term developmental outcomes”, according to HHS register. Half the babies would be vaccinated at birth, while the other half would get vaccinated six weeks later – which has raised ethical questions from researchers across the globe. However, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended universal birth hepatitis B vaccinations since 2009. Hepatitis B vaccination usually involves a series of three or four injections, and clinical trials have already established the best intervals for the vaccinations. ‘Non-specific effects’ of vaccines One of the leaders of the Bandim Health Project at the University of Southern Denmark, Dr Christine Stabell Benn, is an adviser to the US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which recently resolved to stop recommending hepatitis B vaccines to US newborns. Stabell Benn’s research has focused on the “non-specific effects” (NSE) of vaccines. They have conducted trials involving thousands of children in Guinea-Bissau and Denmark, and assert that all vaccines should also be tested for NSEs. The journal Vaccine recently published a scathing comprehensive review of 13 trials conducted by Bandim, which showed that their trials have been unable to show non-specific effects for measles, tuberculosis, diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough vaccines. “We were surprised to find several instances of questionable research practices, such as unpublished primary outcomes, outcome switching, reinterpretation of trials based on statistically fragile subgroup analyses, and frequent promotion of cherry-picked secondary findings as causal, even when primary outcomes yielded null results,” according to the review, which was headed by Dr Henrik Støvring of the Department of Biomedicine, at Aarhus University in Denmark. Study ‘manipulation’ Meanwhile, several high-profile health experts condemned the trial. “[Robert F Kennedy Jr], the Secretary of Health and Human Services, will soon conduct his own Tuskegee experiment,” US paediatrician Dr Paul Offit, co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine, wrote on his Substack platform. “He has chosen the resource-poor nation of Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, to do it. Guinea-Bissau is currently overwhelmed by hepatitis B virus. About 18% of the population is infected,” added Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a professor of both Paediatrics and Vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania. “RFK Jr. has manipulated the study to support his unsupportable, science-resistant beliefs about harms caused by the hepatitis B vaccine,” added Offit, who noted that as the study is single-blinded, researchers will know which children received a birth dose of the vaccine. “This allows for investigator bias, where the investigator might find vague neurodevelopmental problems in the birth-dose group but not the six-week group,” he added. Professor Gavin Yamey, director of the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health at Duke University, argues that “it is unethical to do a randomized controlled trial in which you withhold a proven, life-saving vaccine from newborn babies”. Currently, babies in Guinea-Bissau only receive the hepatitis B vaccination from six weeks’ old. But some 11% of children in the country are already infected with hepatitis B by the age of 18 months, so the government has resolved to introduce vaccination at birth from 2027, as recommended by the WHO. Bandim says its trial will stop enrolling participants when the government rollout of the hepatitis B vaccine to newborns starts. They will follow their cohort for five years, primarily to compare “overall mortality and hospitalisations,” and “secondary outcomes”, looking at “atopic dermatitis and neurodevelopment”, according to a Bandim media release. US Congressional Leaders Agree to $9.4 Billion for Global Health – Countering Trump Proposal for Deeper Cuts 15/01/2026 Sophia Samantaroy Life-saving vaccines, maternal and child health, and programs fighting TB, malaria, and HIV/AIDS are included in the proposed bill. The $9.4 billion package agreed to by the US Senate and House Appropriations Committees, is more than double the $3.7 billion requested by the Trump Administration, and signals bipartisan support for maintaining significant global health aid – although the package still must be approved by both Senate and House, and could also be vetoed by president following passage. The $9.4 billion package agreed to by Congressional leaders in the US House and Senate is less than the $12.4 billion allocation in 2024 and 2025. But it’s still $5.7 billion more than called for last September by US President Donald Trump in his America First Global Health Strategy. The House and Senate have yet to vote on the spending bill, and face a 30 January deadline to pass the federal funding. The legislation would then have to clear the President’s desk before becoming law. The global health allocations are part of a larger $50 billion foreign aid spending package for the 2026 fiscal year. That foreign aid bill, while a 16% cut from 2024, is nearly $20 billion more than what the Trump Administration initially requested. The broader bill also includes $5.4 billion in funding for humanitarian assistance. Some of the funds from that pot will also be dedicated to health – in areas such as food security and nutrition, shelter protection, and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). And it also includes a nod to the Trump administration’s plan to offer low- and middle-income countries some $11 billion in direct bilateral assistance – some of which will also be channeled into health. The bilateral deals replace some of the assistance provided previously under USAID, which boasted a budget of around $44 billion in 2023, shortly before Trump abruptly dismantled it last year, making the US the world’s largest overseas donor. Funding for HIV/AIDS, malaria, family planning Of the $9.4 billion, some $5.88 billion is dedicated to fighting HIV/AIDS – with about $4.5 billion allocated to PEPFAR (not named here), and the rest to Global Fund, UNAIDS, and related activities. Of the $9.4 billion earmarked in the bill specifically for global health programs, some $5.9 billion would be allocated to HIV/AIDS – with $1.25 billion channelled through the Global Fund to Fight TB, AIDS and Malaria, $45 million to UNAIDS, and $4.5 billion through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the flagship US program founded in 2003. While that is still less than the $7.1 billion level of support to the three agencies under the 2024 Biden administration, it’s a major increase from the $2.9 billion for HIV/AIDS requested by Trump. At the same time, the bill also calls for PEPFAR, founded by former US President George Bush, to transition to a largely self-reliant program of national governments over the coming years. In terms of other global health priorities: $795 million is dedicated to malaria, and $379 million for tuberculosis; $85 million is earmarked for polio. Strikingly, some $524 million for family planning and reproductive health services are also included in the funding package – despite the historic reticence of conservatives to fund such programs. And although the administration has ordered a US withdrawal from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Congress allocated $32.5 million for the organization, as part of the family planning funds. The bill does stipulate that the agency cannot spend these monies on China – and that if the Trump administration makes good on its plan to withdraw from UNFPA, the money should then be transferred to other global health programs. Allocations are earmarked for “Global Health Security,” $615.6 million for organizations like Pandemic Fund and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). These funds could also be used in the event of a public health emergency. Funds will also go to neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and nutrition. New ‘National Security Fund’ also includes health components In another twist, support for family planning, reproductive health and countering child marriage is also supported through a new “National Security Fund” of $6.77 billion that Congress aims to create – to “combat China’s influence” among other things. The fund, which also includes monies for clean cook stoves, a Young African Leaders Initiative, peace process monitoring, trade capacity building, and assorted other priorities, specifies that at least 15% of the fund should go to the African continent. Bipartisan support, but with different takes Remarkably, both sides of the aisle – and congressional chambers – came together for the bill in a show of bipartisanship, and an exertion of Congress’s power of the purse. House and Senate Republicans are positioning the agreement as a win for reducing overall foreign aid spending – in this case by about 16% – while also countering growing Chinese influence and advancing President Trump’s foreign policy vision. The bill is an “unprecedented reduction of spending” while still aligning with the “America First agenda,” said House Appropriations Chair, Representative Tom Cole (R-OK). Cole lauded the foreign aid bill’s larger design, saying it “eliminates wasteful spending on DEI or woke programming, climate change mandates, and divisive gender ideologies at the State Department,” and “holds the United Nations accountable.” The Republican Chair also noted that the bill “confronts human trafficking; provides support, funds, or assistance for Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Taiwan; and denies China access to U.S.-backed resources.” But for those across the aisle, the very act of funding global health programs resists the Trump administration’s fiery aid trajectory. The “[b]ill rejects Trump’s decimation of the U.S. foreign assistance enterprise— renewing bipartisan investments in American leadership and reasserting congressional control; Supports key global health, humanitarian, and development investments and rejects extreme House Republican riders,” reads a summary by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice-Chair of the Senate Appropriation Committee. “While including some programmatic funding cuts, the bill rejects the Trump administration’s evisceration of U.S. foreign assistance programs and reaffirms bipartisan support for the full range of international initiatives long promoted by Congress to advance U.S. interests.” WHO is not funded at all Notably absent in the bill is any mention of funding for the World Health Organization, from which the Trump administration is in the process of withdrawing. Nor, is there provision in the bill for paying the $260.6 million in unpaid dues to the organization – for which the US is in arrears – before the pullout date later this month. See related story here. Member States to Discuss US Withdrawal from WHO as Failure to Pay Fees Violates Agreement This story was updated 16 January to include stipulations on UNPFA funding. Image Credits: WHO, Senate Appropriations. Despite La Niña, 2025 Was One of Warmest Years on Record 14/01/2026 Disha Shetty 2025 was among the top three warmest years on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The year 2025 was among the top three warmest years on record, according to the latest update from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Depending on the data set being used, the year was either the second or third warmest year on record. The UN agency for monitoring the atmosphere also confirmed that the past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record, and ocean heating continues unabated. The global average surface temperature in 2025 was 1.44°C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13°C) above the 1850-1900 average that is used as a pre-industrial era baseline, WMO reported. “The year 2025 started and ended with a cooling La Niña and yet it was still one of the warmest years on record globally because of the accumulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. High land and ocean temperatures helped fuel extreme weather – heatwaves, heavy rainfall and intense tropical cyclones, underlining the vital need for early warning systems,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. This update from the WMO comes less than two months after global leaders met in Brazil’s Belém for the annual UN climate conference, COP30. It confirms that the climate action so far is proving to be woefully inadequate as the streak of extraordinary global temperatures continues unabated. A robust data set Annual global mean temperature anomalies relative to the 1850-1900 average shown from 1850 to 2025 for eight datasets as shown in the legend. What makes this data robust is that it is a consolidated analysis of eight different global datasets. Two of these datasets ranked 2025 as the second warmest year in the 176-year record, and the other six ranked it as the third warmest year. The past three years, 2023-2025, are the three warmest years in all eight datasets. The consolidated three-year average 2023-2025 temperature is 1.48 °C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13 °C) above the pre-industrial era. The past 11 years, 2015-2025, are the 11 warmest years in all eight datasets. “WMO’s state of the climate monitoring, based on collaborative and scientifically rigorous global data collection, is more important than ever before because we need to ensure that Earth information is authoritative, accessible and actionable for all,” said Saulo. The update was timed to coincide with the release of global temperature announcements from the respective dataset providers. One of the eight datasets is one from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the US agency that has had its funding cut by the Trump administration. Other data sets are from the European Union, Japan, China and the UK. Six of the eight datasets are based on measurements made at the weather stations, and by ships and buoys using statistical methods to fill gaps in the data. Two of the datasets combine past observations, including satellite data, with models to generate a consistent time series of multiple climate variables, including temperature. The actual global temperature in 2025 was estimated to be 15.08°C, but there is a much larger margin of uncertainty on the actual temperature at around 0.5°C than on the temperature anomaly for 2025, WMO said. Oceans continue to heat Ocean heat content continued to rise in 2025. Roughly 90% of excess heat in the atmosphere is absorbed by the world’s oceans, warming them in the process. This makes ocean heat a critical indicator of climate change. A separate study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences reports that ocean temperatures were also among the highest on record in 2025, reflecting the long-term accumulation of heat within the climate system. And while warming temperatures affect life on Earth, the warming oceans pose a threat to the coral reefs and life in the water. From 2024-2025, the global upper 2000m ocean heat content (OHC) increased by ∼23 ± 8 Zettajoules relative to 2024, according to the study led by Lijing Cheng with the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. That is around 200 times the world’s total electricity generation in 2024. Regionally, about 33% of the global ocean area ranked among its historical (1958–2025) top three warmest conditions. Another 57% fell within the top five, including the tropical and South Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, North Indian Ocean, and Southern Oceans, underscoring the broad ocean warming across basins. While the global annual mean sea surface temperature (SST) in 2025 was 0.12 ± 0.03°C lower than in 2024, it was 0.49°C above the 1981–2010 baseline, showing long-term warming trends. State of the Global Climate 2025 report A climate change protest While the current update was meant to give an indication of the global temperature trend, WMO’s State of the Global Climate 2025 report to be issued in March will go further. WMO will provide a detailed breakdown of key climate change indicators, including greenhouse gases, surface temperatures, ocean heat, sea level rise, glacier retreat and sea ice extent. The datasets being relied by the WMO provide a near-complete global picture of near-surface measurements using statistical methods to fill gaps in data-sparse areas such as the polar regions. Image Credits: WMO, WMO, WMO, Markus Spiske/ Unsplash. Most Vaccine Hesitancy can be Successfully Overcome, New Lancet Study Finds 14/01/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen A health worker getting vaccinated against COVID-19 in Bulgaria in 2021. Fears over the side effects of COVID-19 jabs, which led to initial vaccine hesitancy, mostly gave way to acceptance in the course of the pandemic, with only a small minority remaining unvaccinated due to deep-seated mistrust, a new major study published in The Lancet finds. For the first time, the study “Profiling vaccine attitudes and subsequent uptake in 1.1 million people in England” compared attitudes towards vaccinations with actual vaccination behaviour on a large scale. Based on the findings, health policy experts call for evidence-based, group-specific and long-term communicative approaches to counter vaccine hesitancy. Many of the initially hesitant individuals chose a wait-and-see approach. They were driven by concerns over side effects and efficacy, but eventually opted for the jab as real-world evidence of safety and efficacy grew. The benefit of vaccination was recognised by the majority of those initially hesitant, mainly due to public health communication, community outreach and vaccine rollout itself. “Our findings suggest that most COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy was rooted in concrete concerns that can be addressed and successfully overcome with time and increasing availability of information,” according to the principal authors, Paul Elliott, who is Chair in Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine at the Imperial College in London, and Marc Chadeau-Hyam, Professor of Computational Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Vaccine hesitancy plummeted once information was available Vaccine hesitancy plummeted with the vaccine rollout and information. According to the data, vaccine hesitancy decreased for the vast majority of initially hesitant individuals in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over time, 3.3% of all participants were categorised as hesitant towards the COVID-19 vaccine. Individuals were classified as “vaccine-hesitant” if they stated they would refuse the vaccine, had already refused it, or had not yet decided. Their number fluctuated, plummeting from 8% in January 2021 to 1.1% at the start of 2022, before rising again to 2.2% in February 2022. This slight rise might be the result of “pandemic fatigue” or a shift in “personal risk perception” in the course of the Omicron wave. The study data is based on the Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission (REACT) studies, which monitored the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in England during the COVID-19 pandemic from 1 May 1, 2020, to 31 March, 2022, in random samples of the population. The researchers linked consecutive survey data from 1.1 million adults in England to official National Health Service (NHS) health records. The participant questionnaires included queries about vaccination status and attitudes toward vaccines, significantly enabling a comparison. However, the results may under-represent the most radical critics, who often avoid scientific surveys. Concrete health concerns caused vaccine hesitancy Vaccine hesitancy was mainly driven by concerns over health concerns, side effects and efficacy. Vaccine hesitancy was mainly grounded in concrete concerns about effectiveness and side effects, perception of low risk from COVID-19, mistrust of vaccine developers, and fear of vaccines – sometimes as a result of misinformation, the researchers found. The most prevalent categories of hesitancy, related to effectiveness and health concerns, declined substantially over time as 65% of hesitant participants received one or more vaccinations by May 2024. The reasons for initial vaccine hesitancy varied by demographic. Men were more likely to perceive themselves as not being at risk (17.9% versus 10.2% of women), while women more frequently cited concerns regarding fertility (21.2% versus 8.4% of men). Younger participants more frequently cited a fear of needles. Socio-economic deprivation and institutional mistrust are primary drivers of the reluctance to get a jab. Notably, Black participants were three times more likely to express hesitation than White participants. Experts interpreting the study also suggest this mistrust is frequently rooted in negative healthcare experiences or historically unequal treatment. Significantly, non-White participants were ultimately no less likely to be vaccinated at a later date. Communicative approaches key to successful campaigns Vaccine hesitancy is best countered by transparent, long-term, and evidence-based information provision, according to public health expert Sarah Eitze, researcher at the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour (IPB) at the University of Erfurt in Germany. Although the researchers did not test the success of specific communication efforts or interventions to shift attitudes toward vaccinations, the findings can be used in public health policy and future vaccination campaigns, according to Sarah Eitze, deputy director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Behavioural Research in Global Health. Transparent, continuous, and evidence-based information provision has proven to be effective, explained Eitze, who is a researcher at the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour (IPB) at the University of Erfurt (Germany). “Optimal communication about vaccination is most successful when we take a more evidence-based, target group-specific and long-term approach,” said Eitze. “The study shows that not every form of vaccine scepticism works in the same way. While uncertainty about information can often be addressed effectively, deeply rooted attitudes of rejection based on mistrust of institutions or science are much more difficult to overcome.” Image Credits: European Union/Martin Matev, Felix Sassmannshausen, European Union/Martin Matev, Lisa Wollenschläger/University of Erfurt. 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 Member States Urged Not to Politicise Public Health as Pathogen Access Talks Resume 20/01/2026 Kerry Cullinan IGWG co-chair Matthew Harpur and WHO Assistant Secretary General Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu. The World Health Organization (WHO) negotiations on the world’s first Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS) system resumed in Geneva on Tuesday – with only two more weeks of formal negotiations left before the May deadline. Symbolically, this week’s talks resumed on the first anniversary of US President Donald Trump’s announcement that his country would no longer be part of the WHO, and amid a flurry of US bilateral agreements with African countries that exchange health aid for access to pathogen information – posing a direct challenge to the PABS system being negotiated. Over the next three days, WHO member states will hold a series of informal and formal talks focusing mainly on the scope and objectives of the PABS system, use of terms and governance issues. Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, WHO Assistant Director-General for Health Emergencies, told the meeting at its start on Tuesday that the negotiations are a priority for WHO. “In an ever-divided world, we are guardians of public health, and we need to protect it from politicisation,” said Ihekweazu. “The future of multilateralism depends on the very discussions you have in this room over the next few months. Let the determination that led you to adopting the [Pandemic] Agreement see you through this week successfully.” Crunch time While acknowledging that divergent views were still evident in the informal meetings held over the past few weeks, “I do see a lot of positive movement that I think we can be very proud of”, he added. “It’s no secret that crunch time has started, and before we know it, the [World Health Assembly] will be upon us. After this week concludes, you will be left with around two weeks of formal meetings. Please use every minute and use the informal period to iron out the differences that persist and come closer together on landing zones.” A PABS system would set out how to share pathogens and their genetic information, along with any benefits that may arise from their use, including the development of vaccines and medicines. Meanwhile, the US has signed 15 MOUs have been signed with African countries – the latest being with Malawi on 14 January. The agreements provide opportunities for US companies to provide logistics, data, and supply-chain support and several have been concluded alongside trade agreements. The MOUs are the precursor to five-year grants that involve a rapid transfer of responsibility for domestic health programmes from the US to donor countries from year two of the agreement. Confusion Over ‘Cancellation’ of Controversial Hepatitis B Trial in Guinea-Bissau 16/01/2026 Kerry Cullinan The Africa CDC’s Professor Yap Boum told the media this week that the controversial trial has been cancelled. A controversial clinical trial on the effects of the hepatitis B vaccine on babies in Guinea-Bissau has been “cancelled”, according to Dr Yap Boum of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, this has been contested by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is funding a Danish group to conduct the study, according to CIDRAP. An HHS official told CIDRAP that researchers are still working on the study protocol, the official said, adding, “we are proceeding as planned.” But Boum told a media briefing on Thursday that there were “ethical challenges” with the trial design, and Africa CDC had engaged with the health ministry of Guinea-Bissau about it. “Our information is that the study has been cancelled,” said Boum, who added that while the continent needs research about vaccines, including hepatitis B, “this has to be done within the norms, so we are glad that at this point, the study has been cancelled”. Boum, Africa CDC’s deputy incident manager for mpox who often stands in for the Africa CDC Director-General at media briefings, added that there would be “more engagement” with Guinea-Bissau. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded Bandim Health Project at the University of Southern Denmark a $1,6 million five-year grant to study the “optimal timing and delivery of monovalent hepatitis B vaccinations on newborns in Guinea-Bissau”, according to the US HHS federal register. The trial aimed to enrol 14,000 newborns in a “randomized controlled trial to assess the effects of neonatal Hepatitis B vaccination on early-life mortality, morbidity, and long-term developmental outcomes”, according to HHS register. Half the babies would be vaccinated at birth, while the other half would get vaccinated six weeks later – which has raised ethical questions from researchers across the globe. However, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended universal birth hepatitis B vaccinations since 2009. Hepatitis B vaccination usually involves a series of three or four injections, and clinical trials have already established the best intervals for the vaccinations. ‘Non-specific effects’ of vaccines One of the leaders of the Bandim Health Project at the University of Southern Denmark, Dr Christine Stabell Benn, is an adviser to the US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which recently resolved to stop recommending hepatitis B vaccines to US newborns. Stabell Benn’s research has focused on the “non-specific effects” (NSE) of vaccines. They have conducted trials involving thousands of children in Guinea-Bissau and Denmark, and assert that all vaccines should also be tested for NSEs. The journal Vaccine recently published a scathing comprehensive review of 13 trials conducted by Bandim, which showed that their trials have been unable to show non-specific effects for measles, tuberculosis, diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough vaccines. “We were surprised to find several instances of questionable research practices, such as unpublished primary outcomes, outcome switching, reinterpretation of trials based on statistically fragile subgroup analyses, and frequent promotion of cherry-picked secondary findings as causal, even when primary outcomes yielded null results,” according to the review, which was headed by Dr Henrik Støvring of the Department of Biomedicine, at Aarhus University in Denmark. Study ‘manipulation’ Meanwhile, several high-profile health experts condemned the trial. “[Robert F Kennedy Jr], the Secretary of Health and Human Services, will soon conduct his own Tuskegee experiment,” US paediatrician Dr Paul Offit, co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine, wrote on his Substack platform. “He has chosen the resource-poor nation of Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, to do it. Guinea-Bissau is currently overwhelmed by hepatitis B virus. About 18% of the population is infected,” added Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a professor of both Paediatrics and Vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania. “RFK Jr. has manipulated the study to support his unsupportable, science-resistant beliefs about harms caused by the hepatitis B vaccine,” added Offit, who noted that as the study is single-blinded, researchers will know which children received a birth dose of the vaccine. “This allows for investigator bias, where the investigator might find vague neurodevelopmental problems in the birth-dose group but not the six-week group,” he added. Professor Gavin Yamey, director of the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health at Duke University, argues that “it is unethical to do a randomized controlled trial in which you withhold a proven, life-saving vaccine from newborn babies”. Currently, babies in Guinea-Bissau only receive the hepatitis B vaccination from six weeks’ old. But some 11% of children in the country are already infected with hepatitis B by the age of 18 months, so the government has resolved to introduce vaccination at birth from 2027, as recommended by the WHO. Bandim says its trial will stop enrolling participants when the government rollout of the hepatitis B vaccine to newborns starts. They will follow their cohort for five years, primarily to compare “overall mortality and hospitalisations,” and “secondary outcomes”, looking at “atopic dermatitis and neurodevelopment”, according to a Bandim media release. US Congressional Leaders Agree to $9.4 Billion for Global Health – Countering Trump Proposal for Deeper Cuts 15/01/2026 Sophia Samantaroy Life-saving vaccines, maternal and child health, and programs fighting TB, malaria, and HIV/AIDS are included in the proposed bill. The $9.4 billion package agreed to by the US Senate and House Appropriations Committees, is more than double the $3.7 billion requested by the Trump Administration, and signals bipartisan support for maintaining significant global health aid – although the package still must be approved by both Senate and House, and could also be vetoed by president following passage. The $9.4 billion package agreed to by Congressional leaders in the US House and Senate is less than the $12.4 billion allocation in 2024 and 2025. But it’s still $5.7 billion more than called for last September by US President Donald Trump in his America First Global Health Strategy. The House and Senate have yet to vote on the spending bill, and face a 30 January deadline to pass the federal funding. The legislation would then have to clear the President’s desk before becoming law. The global health allocations are part of a larger $50 billion foreign aid spending package for the 2026 fiscal year. That foreign aid bill, while a 16% cut from 2024, is nearly $20 billion more than what the Trump Administration initially requested. The broader bill also includes $5.4 billion in funding for humanitarian assistance. Some of the funds from that pot will also be dedicated to health – in areas such as food security and nutrition, shelter protection, and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). And it also includes a nod to the Trump administration’s plan to offer low- and middle-income countries some $11 billion in direct bilateral assistance – some of which will also be channeled into health. The bilateral deals replace some of the assistance provided previously under USAID, which boasted a budget of around $44 billion in 2023, shortly before Trump abruptly dismantled it last year, making the US the world’s largest overseas donor. Funding for HIV/AIDS, malaria, family planning Of the $9.4 billion, some $5.88 billion is dedicated to fighting HIV/AIDS – with about $4.5 billion allocated to PEPFAR (not named here), and the rest to Global Fund, UNAIDS, and related activities. Of the $9.4 billion earmarked in the bill specifically for global health programs, some $5.9 billion would be allocated to HIV/AIDS – with $1.25 billion channelled through the Global Fund to Fight TB, AIDS and Malaria, $45 million to UNAIDS, and $4.5 billion through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the flagship US program founded in 2003. While that is still less than the $7.1 billion level of support to the three agencies under the 2024 Biden administration, it’s a major increase from the $2.9 billion for HIV/AIDS requested by Trump. At the same time, the bill also calls for PEPFAR, founded by former US President George Bush, to transition to a largely self-reliant program of national governments over the coming years. In terms of other global health priorities: $795 million is dedicated to malaria, and $379 million for tuberculosis; $85 million is earmarked for polio. Strikingly, some $524 million for family planning and reproductive health services are also included in the funding package – despite the historic reticence of conservatives to fund such programs. And although the administration has ordered a US withdrawal from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Congress allocated $32.5 million for the organization, as part of the family planning funds. The bill does stipulate that the agency cannot spend these monies on China – and that if the Trump administration makes good on its plan to withdraw from UNFPA, the money should then be transferred to other global health programs. Allocations are earmarked for “Global Health Security,” $615.6 million for organizations like Pandemic Fund and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). These funds could also be used in the event of a public health emergency. Funds will also go to neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and nutrition. New ‘National Security Fund’ also includes health components In another twist, support for family planning, reproductive health and countering child marriage is also supported through a new “National Security Fund” of $6.77 billion that Congress aims to create – to “combat China’s influence” among other things. The fund, which also includes monies for clean cook stoves, a Young African Leaders Initiative, peace process monitoring, trade capacity building, and assorted other priorities, specifies that at least 15% of the fund should go to the African continent. Bipartisan support, but with different takes Remarkably, both sides of the aisle – and congressional chambers – came together for the bill in a show of bipartisanship, and an exertion of Congress’s power of the purse. House and Senate Republicans are positioning the agreement as a win for reducing overall foreign aid spending – in this case by about 16% – while also countering growing Chinese influence and advancing President Trump’s foreign policy vision. The bill is an “unprecedented reduction of spending” while still aligning with the “America First agenda,” said House Appropriations Chair, Representative Tom Cole (R-OK). Cole lauded the foreign aid bill’s larger design, saying it “eliminates wasteful spending on DEI or woke programming, climate change mandates, and divisive gender ideologies at the State Department,” and “holds the United Nations accountable.” The Republican Chair also noted that the bill “confronts human trafficking; provides support, funds, or assistance for Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Taiwan; and denies China access to U.S.-backed resources.” But for those across the aisle, the very act of funding global health programs resists the Trump administration’s fiery aid trajectory. The “[b]ill rejects Trump’s decimation of the U.S. foreign assistance enterprise— renewing bipartisan investments in American leadership and reasserting congressional control; Supports key global health, humanitarian, and development investments and rejects extreme House Republican riders,” reads a summary by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice-Chair of the Senate Appropriation Committee. “While including some programmatic funding cuts, the bill rejects the Trump administration’s evisceration of U.S. foreign assistance programs and reaffirms bipartisan support for the full range of international initiatives long promoted by Congress to advance U.S. interests.” WHO is not funded at all Notably absent in the bill is any mention of funding for the World Health Organization, from which the Trump administration is in the process of withdrawing. Nor, is there provision in the bill for paying the $260.6 million in unpaid dues to the organization – for which the US is in arrears – before the pullout date later this month. See related story here. Member States to Discuss US Withdrawal from WHO as Failure to Pay Fees Violates Agreement This story was updated 16 January to include stipulations on UNPFA funding. Image Credits: WHO, Senate Appropriations. Despite La Niña, 2025 Was One of Warmest Years on Record 14/01/2026 Disha Shetty 2025 was among the top three warmest years on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The year 2025 was among the top three warmest years on record, according to the latest update from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Depending on the data set being used, the year was either the second or third warmest year on record. The UN agency for monitoring the atmosphere also confirmed that the past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record, and ocean heating continues unabated. The global average surface temperature in 2025 was 1.44°C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13°C) above the 1850-1900 average that is used as a pre-industrial era baseline, WMO reported. “The year 2025 started and ended with a cooling La Niña and yet it was still one of the warmest years on record globally because of the accumulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. High land and ocean temperatures helped fuel extreme weather – heatwaves, heavy rainfall and intense tropical cyclones, underlining the vital need for early warning systems,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. This update from the WMO comes less than two months after global leaders met in Brazil’s Belém for the annual UN climate conference, COP30. It confirms that the climate action so far is proving to be woefully inadequate as the streak of extraordinary global temperatures continues unabated. A robust data set Annual global mean temperature anomalies relative to the 1850-1900 average shown from 1850 to 2025 for eight datasets as shown in the legend. What makes this data robust is that it is a consolidated analysis of eight different global datasets. Two of these datasets ranked 2025 as the second warmest year in the 176-year record, and the other six ranked it as the third warmest year. The past three years, 2023-2025, are the three warmest years in all eight datasets. The consolidated three-year average 2023-2025 temperature is 1.48 °C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13 °C) above the pre-industrial era. The past 11 years, 2015-2025, are the 11 warmest years in all eight datasets. “WMO’s state of the climate monitoring, based on collaborative and scientifically rigorous global data collection, is more important than ever before because we need to ensure that Earth information is authoritative, accessible and actionable for all,” said Saulo. The update was timed to coincide with the release of global temperature announcements from the respective dataset providers. One of the eight datasets is one from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the US agency that has had its funding cut by the Trump administration. Other data sets are from the European Union, Japan, China and the UK. Six of the eight datasets are based on measurements made at the weather stations, and by ships and buoys using statistical methods to fill gaps in the data. Two of the datasets combine past observations, including satellite data, with models to generate a consistent time series of multiple climate variables, including temperature. The actual global temperature in 2025 was estimated to be 15.08°C, but there is a much larger margin of uncertainty on the actual temperature at around 0.5°C than on the temperature anomaly for 2025, WMO said. Oceans continue to heat Ocean heat content continued to rise in 2025. Roughly 90% of excess heat in the atmosphere is absorbed by the world’s oceans, warming them in the process. This makes ocean heat a critical indicator of climate change. A separate study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences reports that ocean temperatures were also among the highest on record in 2025, reflecting the long-term accumulation of heat within the climate system. And while warming temperatures affect life on Earth, the warming oceans pose a threat to the coral reefs and life in the water. From 2024-2025, the global upper 2000m ocean heat content (OHC) increased by ∼23 ± 8 Zettajoules relative to 2024, according to the study led by Lijing Cheng with the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. That is around 200 times the world’s total electricity generation in 2024. Regionally, about 33% of the global ocean area ranked among its historical (1958–2025) top three warmest conditions. Another 57% fell within the top five, including the tropical and South Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, North Indian Ocean, and Southern Oceans, underscoring the broad ocean warming across basins. While the global annual mean sea surface temperature (SST) in 2025 was 0.12 ± 0.03°C lower than in 2024, it was 0.49°C above the 1981–2010 baseline, showing long-term warming trends. State of the Global Climate 2025 report A climate change protest While the current update was meant to give an indication of the global temperature trend, WMO’s State of the Global Climate 2025 report to be issued in March will go further. WMO will provide a detailed breakdown of key climate change indicators, including greenhouse gases, surface temperatures, ocean heat, sea level rise, glacier retreat and sea ice extent. The datasets being relied by the WMO provide a near-complete global picture of near-surface measurements using statistical methods to fill gaps in data-sparse areas such as the polar regions. Image Credits: WMO, WMO, WMO, Markus Spiske/ Unsplash. Most Vaccine Hesitancy can be Successfully Overcome, New Lancet Study Finds 14/01/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen A health worker getting vaccinated against COVID-19 in Bulgaria in 2021. Fears over the side effects of COVID-19 jabs, which led to initial vaccine hesitancy, mostly gave way to acceptance in the course of the pandemic, with only a small minority remaining unvaccinated due to deep-seated mistrust, a new major study published in The Lancet finds. For the first time, the study “Profiling vaccine attitudes and subsequent uptake in 1.1 million people in England” compared attitudes towards vaccinations with actual vaccination behaviour on a large scale. Based on the findings, health policy experts call for evidence-based, group-specific and long-term communicative approaches to counter vaccine hesitancy. Many of the initially hesitant individuals chose a wait-and-see approach. They were driven by concerns over side effects and efficacy, but eventually opted for the jab as real-world evidence of safety and efficacy grew. The benefit of vaccination was recognised by the majority of those initially hesitant, mainly due to public health communication, community outreach and vaccine rollout itself. “Our findings suggest that most COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy was rooted in concrete concerns that can be addressed and successfully overcome with time and increasing availability of information,” according to the principal authors, Paul Elliott, who is Chair in Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine at the Imperial College in London, and Marc Chadeau-Hyam, Professor of Computational Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Vaccine hesitancy plummeted once information was available Vaccine hesitancy plummeted with the vaccine rollout and information. According to the data, vaccine hesitancy decreased for the vast majority of initially hesitant individuals in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over time, 3.3% of all participants were categorised as hesitant towards the COVID-19 vaccine. Individuals were classified as “vaccine-hesitant” if they stated they would refuse the vaccine, had already refused it, or had not yet decided. Their number fluctuated, plummeting from 8% in January 2021 to 1.1% at the start of 2022, before rising again to 2.2% in February 2022. This slight rise might be the result of “pandemic fatigue” or a shift in “personal risk perception” in the course of the Omicron wave. The study data is based on the Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission (REACT) studies, which monitored the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in England during the COVID-19 pandemic from 1 May 1, 2020, to 31 March, 2022, in random samples of the population. The researchers linked consecutive survey data from 1.1 million adults in England to official National Health Service (NHS) health records. The participant questionnaires included queries about vaccination status and attitudes toward vaccines, significantly enabling a comparison. However, the results may under-represent the most radical critics, who often avoid scientific surveys. Concrete health concerns caused vaccine hesitancy Vaccine hesitancy was mainly driven by concerns over health concerns, side effects and efficacy. Vaccine hesitancy was mainly grounded in concrete concerns about effectiveness and side effects, perception of low risk from COVID-19, mistrust of vaccine developers, and fear of vaccines – sometimes as a result of misinformation, the researchers found. The most prevalent categories of hesitancy, related to effectiveness and health concerns, declined substantially over time as 65% of hesitant participants received one or more vaccinations by May 2024. The reasons for initial vaccine hesitancy varied by demographic. Men were more likely to perceive themselves as not being at risk (17.9% versus 10.2% of women), while women more frequently cited concerns regarding fertility (21.2% versus 8.4% of men). Younger participants more frequently cited a fear of needles. Socio-economic deprivation and institutional mistrust are primary drivers of the reluctance to get a jab. Notably, Black participants were three times more likely to express hesitation than White participants. Experts interpreting the study also suggest this mistrust is frequently rooted in negative healthcare experiences or historically unequal treatment. Significantly, non-White participants were ultimately no less likely to be vaccinated at a later date. Communicative approaches key to successful campaigns Vaccine hesitancy is best countered by transparent, long-term, and evidence-based information provision, according to public health expert Sarah Eitze, researcher at the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour (IPB) at the University of Erfurt in Germany. Although the researchers did not test the success of specific communication efforts or interventions to shift attitudes toward vaccinations, the findings can be used in public health policy and future vaccination campaigns, according to Sarah Eitze, deputy director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Behavioural Research in Global Health. Transparent, continuous, and evidence-based information provision has proven to be effective, explained Eitze, who is a researcher at the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour (IPB) at the University of Erfurt (Germany). “Optimal communication about vaccination is most successful when we take a more evidence-based, target group-specific and long-term approach,” said Eitze. “The study shows that not every form of vaccine scepticism works in the same way. While uncertainty about information can often be addressed effectively, deeply rooted attitudes of rejection based on mistrust of institutions or science are much more difficult to overcome.” Image Credits: European Union/Martin Matev, Felix Sassmannshausen, European Union/Martin Matev, Lisa Wollenschläger/University of Erfurt. 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.
Confusion Over ‘Cancellation’ of Controversial Hepatitis B Trial in Guinea-Bissau 16/01/2026 Kerry Cullinan The Africa CDC’s Professor Yap Boum told the media this week that the controversial trial has been cancelled. A controversial clinical trial on the effects of the hepatitis B vaccine on babies in Guinea-Bissau has been “cancelled”, according to Dr Yap Boum of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, this has been contested by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is funding a Danish group to conduct the study, according to CIDRAP. An HHS official told CIDRAP that researchers are still working on the study protocol, the official said, adding, “we are proceeding as planned.” But Boum told a media briefing on Thursday that there were “ethical challenges” with the trial design, and Africa CDC had engaged with the health ministry of Guinea-Bissau about it. “Our information is that the study has been cancelled,” said Boum, who added that while the continent needs research about vaccines, including hepatitis B, “this has to be done within the norms, so we are glad that at this point, the study has been cancelled”. Boum, Africa CDC’s deputy incident manager for mpox who often stands in for the Africa CDC Director-General at media briefings, added that there would be “more engagement” with Guinea-Bissau. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded Bandim Health Project at the University of Southern Denmark a $1,6 million five-year grant to study the “optimal timing and delivery of monovalent hepatitis B vaccinations on newborns in Guinea-Bissau”, according to the US HHS federal register. The trial aimed to enrol 14,000 newborns in a “randomized controlled trial to assess the effects of neonatal Hepatitis B vaccination on early-life mortality, morbidity, and long-term developmental outcomes”, according to HHS register. Half the babies would be vaccinated at birth, while the other half would get vaccinated six weeks later – which has raised ethical questions from researchers across the globe. However, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has recommended universal birth hepatitis B vaccinations since 2009. Hepatitis B vaccination usually involves a series of three or four injections, and clinical trials have already established the best intervals for the vaccinations. ‘Non-specific effects’ of vaccines One of the leaders of the Bandim Health Project at the University of Southern Denmark, Dr Christine Stabell Benn, is an adviser to the US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which recently resolved to stop recommending hepatitis B vaccines to US newborns. Stabell Benn’s research has focused on the “non-specific effects” (NSE) of vaccines. They have conducted trials involving thousands of children in Guinea-Bissau and Denmark, and assert that all vaccines should also be tested for NSEs. The journal Vaccine recently published a scathing comprehensive review of 13 trials conducted by Bandim, which showed that their trials have been unable to show non-specific effects for measles, tuberculosis, diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough vaccines. “We were surprised to find several instances of questionable research practices, such as unpublished primary outcomes, outcome switching, reinterpretation of trials based on statistically fragile subgroup analyses, and frequent promotion of cherry-picked secondary findings as causal, even when primary outcomes yielded null results,” according to the review, which was headed by Dr Henrik Støvring of the Department of Biomedicine, at Aarhus University in Denmark. Study ‘manipulation’ Meanwhile, several high-profile health experts condemned the trial. “[Robert F Kennedy Jr], the Secretary of Health and Human Services, will soon conduct his own Tuskegee experiment,” US paediatrician Dr Paul Offit, co-inventor of a rotavirus vaccine, wrote on his Substack platform. “He has chosen the resource-poor nation of Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, to do it. Guinea-Bissau is currently overwhelmed by hepatitis B virus. About 18% of the population is infected,” added Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and an attending physician at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a professor of both Paediatrics and Vaccinology at the University of Pennsylvania. “RFK Jr. has manipulated the study to support his unsupportable, science-resistant beliefs about harms caused by the hepatitis B vaccine,” added Offit, who noted that as the study is single-blinded, researchers will know which children received a birth dose of the vaccine. “This allows for investigator bias, where the investigator might find vague neurodevelopmental problems in the birth-dose group but not the six-week group,” he added. Professor Gavin Yamey, director of the Center for Policy Impact in Global Health at Duke University, argues that “it is unethical to do a randomized controlled trial in which you withhold a proven, life-saving vaccine from newborn babies”. Currently, babies in Guinea-Bissau only receive the hepatitis B vaccination from six weeks’ old. But some 11% of children in the country are already infected with hepatitis B by the age of 18 months, so the government has resolved to introduce vaccination at birth from 2027, as recommended by the WHO. Bandim says its trial will stop enrolling participants when the government rollout of the hepatitis B vaccine to newborns starts. They will follow their cohort for five years, primarily to compare “overall mortality and hospitalisations,” and “secondary outcomes”, looking at “atopic dermatitis and neurodevelopment”, according to a Bandim media release. US Congressional Leaders Agree to $9.4 Billion for Global Health – Countering Trump Proposal for Deeper Cuts 15/01/2026 Sophia Samantaroy Life-saving vaccines, maternal and child health, and programs fighting TB, malaria, and HIV/AIDS are included in the proposed bill. The $9.4 billion package agreed to by the US Senate and House Appropriations Committees, is more than double the $3.7 billion requested by the Trump Administration, and signals bipartisan support for maintaining significant global health aid – although the package still must be approved by both Senate and House, and could also be vetoed by president following passage. The $9.4 billion package agreed to by Congressional leaders in the US House and Senate is less than the $12.4 billion allocation in 2024 and 2025. But it’s still $5.7 billion more than called for last September by US President Donald Trump in his America First Global Health Strategy. The House and Senate have yet to vote on the spending bill, and face a 30 January deadline to pass the federal funding. The legislation would then have to clear the President’s desk before becoming law. The global health allocations are part of a larger $50 billion foreign aid spending package for the 2026 fiscal year. That foreign aid bill, while a 16% cut from 2024, is nearly $20 billion more than what the Trump Administration initially requested. The broader bill also includes $5.4 billion in funding for humanitarian assistance. Some of the funds from that pot will also be dedicated to health – in areas such as food security and nutrition, shelter protection, and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). And it also includes a nod to the Trump administration’s plan to offer low- and middle-income countries some $11 billion in direct bilateral assistance – some of which will also be channeled into health. The bilateral deals replace some of the assistance provided previously under USAID, which boasted a budget of around $44 billion in 2023, shortly before Trump abruptly dismantled it last year, making the US the world’s largest overseas donor. Funding for HIV/AIDS, malaria, family planning Of the $9.4 billion, some $5.88 billion is dedicated to fighting HIV/AIDS – with about $4.5 billion allocated to PEPFAR (not named here), and the rest to Global Fund, UNAIDS, and related activities. Of the $9.4 billion earmarked in the bill specifically for global health programs, some $5.9 billion would be allocated to HIV/AIDS – with $1.25 billion channelled through the Global Fund to Fight TB, AIDS and Malaria, $45 million to UNAIDS, and $4.5 billion through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the flagship US program founded in 2003. While that is still less than the $7.1 billion level of support to the three agencies under the 2024 Biden administration, it’s a major increase from the $2.9 billion for HIV/AIDS requested by Trump. At the same time, the bill also calls for PEPFAR, founded by former US President George Bush, to transition to a largely self-reliant program of national governments over the coming years. In terms of other global health priorities: $795 million is dedicated to malaria, and $379 million for tuberculosis; $85 million is earmarked for polio. Strikingly, some $524 million for family planning and reproductive health services are also included in the funding package – despite the historic reticence of conservatives to fund such programs. And although the administration has ordered a US withdrawal from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Congress allocated $32.5 million for the organization, as part of the family planning funds. The bill does stipulate that the agency cannot spend these monies on China – and that if the Trump administration makes good on its plan to withdraw from UNFPA, the money should then be transferred to other global health programs. Allocations are earmarked for “Global Health Security,” $615.6 million for organizations like Pandemic Fund and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). These funds could also be used in the event of a public health emergency. Funds will also go to neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and nutrition. New ‘National Security Fund’ also includes health components In another twist, support for family planning, reproductive health and countering child marriage is also supported through a new “National Security Fund” of $6.77 billion that Congress aims to create – to “combat China’s influence” among other things. The fund, which also includes monies for clean cook stoves, a Young African Leaders Initiative, peace process monitoring, trade capacity building, and assorted other priorities, specifies that at least 15% of the fund should go to the African continent. Bipartisan support, but with different takes Remarkably, both sides of the aisle – and congressional chambers – came together for the bill in a show of bipartisanship, and an exertion of Congress’s power of the purse. House and Senate Republicans are positioning the agreement as a win for reducing overall foreign aid spending – in this case by about 16% – while also countering growing Chinese influence and advancing President Trump’s foreign policy vision. The bill is an “unprecedented reduction of spending” while still aligning with the “America First agenda,” said House Appropriations Chair, Representative Tom Cole (R-OK). Cole lauded the foreign aid bill’s larger design, saying it “eliminates wasteful spending on DEI or woke programming, climate change mandates, and divisive gender ideologies at the State Department,” and “holds the United Nations accountable.” The Republican Chair also noted that the bill “confronts human trafficking; provides support, funds, or assistance for Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Taiwan; and denies China access to U.S.-backed resources.” But for those across the aisle, the very act of funding global health programs resists the Trump administration’s fiery aid trajectory. The “[b]ill rejects Trump’s decimation of the U.S. foreign assistance enterprise— renewing bipartisan investments in American leadership and reasserting congressional control; Supports key global health, humanitarian, and development investments and rejects extreme House Republican riders,” reads a summary by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice-Chair of the Senate Appropriation Committee. “While including some programmatic funding cuts, the bill rejects the Trump administration’s evisceration of U.S. foreign assistance programs and reaffirms bipartisan support for the full range of international initiatives long promoted by Congress to advance U.S. interests.” WHO is not funded at all Notably absent in the bill is any mention of funding for the World Health Organization, from which the Trump administration is in the process of withdrawing. Nor, is there provision in the bill for paying the $260.6 million in unpaid dues to the organization – for which the US is in arrears – before the pullout date later this month. See related story here. Member States to Discuss US Withdrawal from WHO as Failure to Pay Fees Violates Agreement This story was updated 16 January to include stipulations on UNPFA funding. Image Credits: WHO, Senate Appropriations. Despite La Niña, 2025 Was One of Warmest Years on Record 14/01/2026 Disha Shetty 2025 was among the top three warmest years on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The year 2025 was among the top three warmest years on record, according to the latest update from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Depending on the data set being used, the year was either the second or third warmest year on record. The UN agency for monitoring the atmosphere also confirmed that the past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record, and ocean heating continues unabated. The global average surface temperature in 2025 was 1.44°C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13°C) above the 1850-1900 average that is used as a pre-industrial era baseline, WMO reported. “The year 2025 started and ended with a cooling La Niña and yet it was still one of the warmest years on record globally because of the accumulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. High land and ocean temperatures helped fuel extreme weather – heatwaves, heavy rainfall and intense tropical cyclones, underlining the vital need for early warning systems,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. This update from the WMO comes less than two months after global leaders met in Brazil’s Belém for the annual UN climate conference, COP30. It confirms that the climate action so far is proving to be woefully inadequate as the streak of extraordinary global temperatures continues unabated. A robust data set Annual global mean temperature anomalies relative to the 1850-1900 average shown from 1850 to 2025 for eight datasets as shown in the legend. What makes this data robust is that it is a consolidated analysis of eight different global datasets. Two of these datasets ranked 2025 as the second warmest year in the 176-year record, and the other six ranked it as the third warmest year. The past three years, 2023-2025, are the three warmest years in all eight datasets. The consolidated three-year average 2023-2025 temperature is 1.48 °C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13 °C) above the pre-industrial era. The past 11 years, 2015-2025, are the 11 warmest years in all eight datasets. “WMO’s state of the climate monitoring, based on collaborative and scientifically rigorous global data collection, is more important than ever before because we need to ensure that Earth information is authoritative, accessible and actionable for all,” said Saulo. The update was timed to coincide with the release of global temperature announcements from the respective dataset providers. One of the eight datasets is one from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the US agency that has had its funding cut by the Trump administration. Other data sets are from the European Union, Japan, China and the UK. Six of the eight datasets are based on measurements made at the weather stations, and by ships and buoys using statistical methods to fill gaps in the data. Two of the datasets combine past observations, including satellite data, with models to generate a consistent time series of multiple climate variables, including temperature. The actual global temperature in 2025 was estimated to be 15.08°C, but there is a much larger margin of uncertainty on the actual temperature at around 0.5°C than on the temperature anomaly for 2025, WMO said. Oceans continue to heat Ocean heat content continued to rise in 2025. Roughly 90% of excess heat in the atmosphere is absorbed by the world’s oceans, warming them in the process. This makes ocean heat a critical indicator of climate change. A separate study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences reports that ocean temperatures were also among the highest on record in 2025, reflecting the long-term accumulation of heat within the climate system. And while warming temperatures affect life on Earth, the warming oceans pose a threat to the coral reefs and life in the water. From 2024-2025, the global upper 2000m ocean heat content (OHC) increased by ∼23 ± 8 Zettajoules relative to 2024, according to the study led by Lijing Cheng with the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. That is around 200 times the world’s total electricity generation in 2024. Regionally, about 33% of the global ocean area ranked among its historical (1958–2025) top three warmest conditions. Another 57% fell within the top five, including the tropical and South Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, North Indian Ocean, and Southern Oceans, underscoring the broad ocean warming across basins. While the global annual mean sea surface temperature (SST) in 2025 was 0.12 ± 0.03°C lower than in 2024, it was 0.49°C above the 1981–2010 baseline, showing long-term warming trends. State of the Global Climate 2025 report A climate change protest While the current update was meant to give an indication of the global temperature trend, WMO’s State of the Global Climate 2025 report to be issued in March will go further. WMO will provide a detailed breakdown of key climate change indicators, including greenhouse gases, surface temperatures, ocean heat, sea level rise, glacier retreat and sea ice extent. The datasets being relied by the WMO provide a near-complete global picture of near-surface measurements using statistical methods to fill gaps in data-sparse areas such as the polar regions. Image Credits: WMO, WMO, WMO, Markus Spiske/ Unsplash. Most Vaccine Hesitancy can be Successfully Overcome, New Lancet Study Finds 14/01/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen A health worker getting vaccinated against COVID-19 in Bulgaria in 2021. Fears over the side effects of COVID-19 jabs, which led to initial vaccine hesitancy, mostly gave way to acceptance in the course of the pandemic, with only a small minority remaining unvaccinated due to deep-seated mistrust, a new major study published in The Lancet finds. For the first time, the study “Profiling vaccine attitudes and subsequent uptake in 1.1 million people in England” compared attitudes towards vaccinations with actual vaccination behaviour on a large scale. Based on the findings, health policy experts call for evidence-based, group-specific and long-term communicative approaches to counter vaccine hesitancy. Many of the initially hesitant individuals chose a wait-and-see approach. They were driven by concerns over side effects and efficacy, but eventually opted for the jab as real-world evidence of safety and efficacy grew. The benefit of vaccination was recognised by the majority of those initially hesitant, mainly due to public health communication, community outreach and vaccine rollout itself. “Our findings suggest that most COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy was rooted in concrete concerns that can be addressed and successfully overcome with time and increasing availability of information,” according to the principal authors, Paul Elliott, who is Chair in Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine at the Imperial College in London, and Marc Chadeau-Hyam, Professor of Computational Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Vaccine hesitancy plummeted once information was available Vaccine hesitancy plummeted with the vaccine rollout and information. According to the data, vaccine hesitancy decreased for the vast majority of initially hesitant individuals in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over time, 3.3% of all participants were categorised as hesitant towards the COVID-19 vaccine. Individuals were classified as “vaccine-hesitant” if they stated they would refuse the vaccine, had already refused it, or had not yet decided. Their number fluctuated, plummeting from 8% in January 2021 to 1.1% at the start of 2022, before rising again to 2.2% in February 2022. This slight rise might be the result of “pandemic fatigue” or a shift in “personal risk perception” in the course of the Omicron wave. The study data is based on the Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission (REACT) studies, which monitored the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in England during the COVID-19 pandemic from 1 May 1, 2020, to 31 March, 2022, in random samples of the population. The researchers linked consecutive survey data from 1.1 million adults in England to official National Health Service (NHS) health records. The participant questionnaires included queries about vaccination status and attitudes toward vaccines, significantly enabling a comparison. However, the results may under-represent the most radical critics, who often avoid scientific surveys. Concrete health concerns caused vaccine hesitancy Vaccine hesitancy was mainly driven by concerns over health concerns, side effects and efficacy. Vaccine hesitancy was mainly grounded in concrete concerns about effectiveness and side effects, perception of low risk from COVID-19, mistrust of vaccine developers, and fear of vaccines – sometimes as a result of misinformation, the researchers found. The most prevalent categories of hesitancy, related to effectiveness and health concerns, declined substantially over time as 65% of hesitant participants received one or more vaccinations by May 2024. The reasons for initial vaccine hesitancy varied by demographic. Men were more likely to perceive themselves as not being at risk (17.9% versus 10.2% of women), while women more frequently cited concerns regarding fertility (21.2% versus 8.4% of men). Younger participants more frequently cited a fear of needles. Socio-economic deprivation and institutional mistrust are primary drivers of the reluctance to get a jab. Notably, Black participants were three times more likely to express hesitation than White participants. Experts interpreting the study also suggest this mistrust is frequently rooted in negative healthcare experiences or historically unequal treatment. Significantly, non-White participants were ultimately no less likely to be vaccinated at a later date. Communicative approaches key to successful campaigns Vaccine hesitancy is best countered by transparent, long-term, and evidence-based information provision, according to public health expert Sarah Eitze, researcher at the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour (IPB) at the University of Erfurt in Germany. Although the researchers did not test the success of specific communication efforts or interventions to shift attitudes toward vaccinations, the findings can be used in public health policy and future vaccination campaigns, according to Sarah Eitze, deputy director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Behavioural Research in Global Health. Transparent, continuous, and evidence-based information provision has proven to be effective, explained Eitze, who is a researcher at the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour (IPB) at the University of Erfurt (Germany). “Optimal communication about vaccination is most successful when we take a more evidence-based, target group-specific and long-term approach,” said Eitze. “The study shows that not every form of vaccine scepticism works in the same way. While uncertainty about information can often be addressed effectively, deeply rooted attitudes of rejection based on mistrust of institutions or science are much more difficult to overcome.” Image Credits: European Union/Martin Matev, Felix Sassmannshausen, European Union/Martin Matev, Lisa Wollenschläger/University of Erfurt. 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 Congressional Leaders Agree to $9.4 Billion for Global Health – Countering Trump Proposal for Deeper Cuts 15/01/2026 Sophia Samantaroy Life-saving vaccines, maternal and child health, and programs fighting TB, malaria, and HIV/AIDS are included in the proposed bill. The $9.4 billion package agreed to by the US Senate and House Appropriations Committees, is more than double the $3.7 billion requested by the Trump Administration, and signals bipartisan support for maintaining significant global health aid – although the package still must be approved by both Senate and House, and could also be vetoed by president following passage. The $9.4 billion package agreed to by Congressional leaders in the US House and Senate is less than the $12.4 billion allocation in 2024 and 2025. But it’s still $5.7 billion more than called for last September by US President Donald Trump in his America First Global Health Strategy. The House and Senate have yet to vote on the spending bill, and face a 30 January deadline to pass the federal funding. The legislation would then have to clear the President’s desk before becoming law. The global health allocations are part of a larger $50 billion foreign aid spending package for the 2026 fiscal year. That foreign aid bill, while a 16% cut from 2024, is nearly $20 billion more than what the Trump Administration initially requested. The broader bill also includes $5.4 billion in funding for humanitarian assistance. Some of the funds from that pot will also be dedicated to health – in areas such as food security and nutrition, shelter protection, and water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). And it also includes a nod to the Trump administration’s plan to offer low- and middle-income countries some $11 billion in direct bilateral assistance – some of which will also be channeled into health. The bilateral deals replace some of the assistance provided previously under USAID, which boasted a budget of around $44 billion in 2023, shortly before Trump abruptly dismantled it last year, making the US the world’s largest overseas donor. Funding for HIV/AIDS, malaria, family planning Of the $9.4 billion, some $5.88 billion is dedicated to fighting HIV/AIDS – with about $4.5 billion allocated to PEPFAR (not named here), and the rest to Global Fund, UNAIDS, and related activities. Of the $9.4 billion earmarked in the bill specifically for global health programs, some $5.9 billion would be allocated to HIV/AIDS – with $1.25 billion channelled through the Global Fund to Fight TB, AIDS and Malaria, $45 million to UNAIDS, and $4.5 billion through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the flagship US program founded in 2003. While that is still less than the $7.1 billion level of support to the three agencies under the 2024 Biden administration, it’s a major increase from the $2.9 billion for HIV/AIDS requested by Trump. At the same time, the bill also calls for PEPFAR, founded by former US President George Bush, to transition to a largely self-reliant program of national governments over the coming years. In terms of other global health priorities: $795 million is dedicated to malaria, and $379 million for tuberculosis; $85 million is earmarked for polio. Strikingly, some $524 million for family planning and reproductive health services are also included in the funding package – despite the historic reticence of conservatives to fund such programs. And although the administration has ordered a US withdrawal from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), Congress allocated $32.5 million for the organization, as part of the family planning funds. The bill does stipulate that the agency cannot spend these monies on China – and that if the Trump administration makes good on its plan to withdraw from UNFPA, the money should then be transferred to other global health programs. Allocations are earmarked for “Global Health Security,” $615.6 million for organizations like Pandemic Fund and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). These funds could also be used in the event of a public health emergency. Funds will also go to neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) and nutrition. New ‘National Security Fund’ also includes health components In another twist, support for family planning, reproductive health and countering child marriage is also supported through a new “National Security Fund” of $6.77 billion that Congress aims to create – to “combat China’s influence” among other things. The fund, which also includes monies for clean cook stoves, a Young African Leaders Initiative, peace process monitoring, trade capacity building, and assorted other priorities, specifies that at least 15% of the fund should go to the African continent. Bipartisan support, but with different takes Remarkably, both sides of the aisle – and congressional chambers – came together for the bill in a show of bipartisanship, and an exertion of Congress’s power of the purse. House and Senate Republicans are positioning the agreement as a win for reducing overall foreign aid spending – in this case by about 16% – while also countering growing Chinese influence and advancing President Trump’s foreign policy vision. The bill is an “unprecedented reduction of spending” while still aligning with the “America First agenda,” said House Appropriations Chair, Representative Tom Cole (R-OK). Cole lauded the foreign aid bill’s larger design, saying it “eliminates wasteful spending on DEI or woke programming, climate change mandates, and divisive gender ideologies at the State Department,” and “holds the United Nations accountable.” The Republican Chair also noted that the bill “confronts human trafficking; provides support, funds, or assistance for Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Taiwan; and denies China access to U.S.-backed resources.” But for those across the aisle, the very act of funding global health programs resists the Trump administration’s fiery aid trajectory. The “[b]ill rejects Trump’s decimation of the U.S. foreign assistance enterprise— renewing bipartisan investments in American leadership and reasserting congressional control; Supports key global health, humanitarian, and development investments and rejects extreme House Republican riders,” reads a summary by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice-Chair of the Senate Appropriation Committee. “While including some programmatic funding cuts, the bill rejects the Trump administration’s evisceration of U.S. foreign assistance programs and reaffirms bipartisan support for the full range of international initiatives long promoted by Congress to advance U.S. interests.” WHO is not funded at all Notably absent in the bill is any mention of funding for the World Health Organization, from which the Trump administration is in the process of withdrawing. Nor, is there provision in the bill for paying the $260.6 million in unpaid dues to the organization – for which the US is in arrears – before the pullout date later this month. See related story here. Member States to Discuss US Withdrawal from WHO as Failure to Pay Fees Violates Agreement This story was updated 16 January to include stipulations on UNPFA funding. Image Credits: WHO, Senate Appropriations. Despite La Niña, 2025 Was One of Warmest Years on Record 14/01/2026 Disha Shetty 2025 was among the top three warmest years on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The year 2025 was among the top three warmest years on record, according to the latest update from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Depending on the data set being used, the year was either the second or third warmest year on record. The UN agency for monitoring the atmosphere also confirmed that the past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record, and ocean heating continues unabated. The global average surface temperature in 2025 was 1.44°C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13°C) above the 1850-1900 average that is used as a pre-industrial era baseline, WMO reported. “The year 2025 started and ended with a cooling La Niña and yet it was still one of the warmest years on record globally because of the accumulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. High land and ocean temperatures helped fuel extreme weather – heatwaves, heavy rainfall and intense tropical cyclones, underlining the vital need for early warning systems,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. This update from the WMO comes less than two months after global leaders met in Brazil’s Belém for the annual UN climate conference, COP30. It confirms that the climate action so far is proving to be woefully inadequate as the streak of extraordinary global temperatures continues unabated. A robust data set Annual global mean temperature anomalies relative to the 1850-1900 average shown from 1850 to 2025 for eight datasets as shown in the legend. What makes this data robust is that it is a consolidated analysis of eight different global datasets. Two of these datasets ranked 2025 as the second warmest year in the 176-year record, and the other six ranked it as the third warmest year. The past three years, 2023-2025, are the three warmest years in all eight datasets. The consolidated three-year average 2023-2025 temperature is 1.48 °C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13 °C) above the pre-industrial era. The past 11 years, 2015-2025, are the 11 warmest years in all eight datasets. “WMO’s state of the climate monitoring, based on collaborative and scientifically rigorous global data collection, is more important than ever before because we need to ensure that Earth information is authoritative, accessible and actionable for all,” said Saulo. The update was timed to coincide with the release of global temperature announcements from the respective dataset providers. One of the eight datasets is one from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the US agency that has had its funding cut by the Trump administration. Other data sets are from the European Union, Japan, China and the UK. Six of the eight datasets are based on measurements made at the weather stations, and by ships and buoys using statistical methods to fill gaps in the data. Two of the datasets combine past observations, including satellite data, with models to generate a consistent time series of multiple climate variables, including temperature. The actual global temperature in 2025 was estimated to be 15.08°C, but there is a much larger margin of uncertainty on the actual temperature at around 0.5°C than on the temperature anomaly for 2025, WMO said. Oceans continue to heat Ocean heat content continued to rise in 2025. Roughly 90% of excess heat in the atmosphere is absorbed by the world’s oceans, warming them in the process. This makes ocean heat a critical indicator of climate change. A separate study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences reports that ocean temperatures were also among the highest on record in 2025, reflecting the long-term accumulation of heat within the climate system. And while warming temperatures affect life on Earth, the warming oceans pose a threat to the coral reefs and life in the water. From 2024-2025, the global upper 2000m ocean heat content (OHC) increased by ∼23 ± 8 Zettajoules relative to 2024, according to the study led by Lijing Cheng with the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. That is around 200 times the world’s total electricity generation in 2024. Regionally, about 33% of the global ocean area ranked among its historical (1958–2025) top three warmest conditions. Another 57% fell within the top five, including the tropical and South Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, North Indian Ocean, and Southern Oceans, underscoring the broad ocean warming across basins. While the global annual mean sea surface temperature (SST) in 2025 was 0.12 ± 0.03°C lower than in 2024, it was 0.49°C above the 1981–2010 baseline, showing long-term warming trends. State of the Global Climate 2025 report A climate change protest While the current update was meant to give an indication of the global temperature trend, WMO’s State of the Global Climate 2025 report to be issued in March will go further. WMO will provide a detailed breakdown of key climate change indicators, including greenhouse gases, surface temperatures, ocean heat, sea level rise, glacier retreat and sea ice extent. The datasets being relied by the WMO provide a near-complete global picture of near-surface measurements using statistical methods to fill gaps in data-sparse areas such as the polar regions. Image Credits: WMO, WMO, WMO, Markus Spiske/ Unsplash. Most Vaccine Hesitancy can be Successfully Overcome, New Lancet Study Finds 14/01/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen A health worker getting vaccinated against COVID-19 in Bulgaria in 2021. Fears over the side effects of COVID-19 jabs, which led to initial vaccine hesitancy, mostly gave way to acceptance in the course of the pandemic, with only a small minority remaining unvaccinated due to deep-seated mistrust, a new major study published in The Lancet finds. For the first time, the study “Profiling vaccine attitudes and subsequent uptake in 1.1 million people in England” compared attitudes towards vaccinations with actual vaccination behaviour on a large scale. Based on the findings, health policy experts call for evidence-based, group-specific and long-term communicative approaches to counter vaccine hesitancy. Many of the initially hesitant individuals chose a wait-and-see approach. They were driven by concerns over side effects and efficacy, but eventually opted for the jab as real-world evidence of safety and efficacy grew. The benefit of vaccination was recognised by the majority of those initially hesitant, mainly due to public health communication, community outreach and vaccine rollout itself. “Our findings suggest that most COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy was rooted in concrete concerns that can be addressed and successfully overcome with time and increasing availability of information,” according to the principal authors, Paul Elliott, who is Chair in Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine at the Imperial College in London, and Marc Chadeau-Hyam, Professor of Computational Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Vaccine hesitancy plummeted once information was available Vaccine hesitancy plummeted with the vaccine rollout and information. According to the data, vaccine hesitancy decreased for the vast majority of initially hesitant individuals in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over time, 3.3% of all participants were categorised as hesitant towards the COVID-19 vaccine. Individuals were classified as “vaccine-hesitant” if they stated they would refuse the vaccine, had already refused it, or had not yet decided. Their number fluctuated, plummeting from 8% in January 2021 to 1.1% at the start of 2022, before rising again to 2.2% in February 2022. This slight rise might be the result of “pandemic fatigue” or a shift in “personal risk perception” in the course of the Omicron wave. The study data is based on the Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission (REACT) studies, which monitored the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in England during the COVID-19 pandemic from 1 May 1, 2020, to 31 March, 2022, in random samples of the population. The researchers linked consecutive survey data from 1.1 million adults in England to official National Health Service (NHS) health records. The participant questionnaires included queries about vaccination status and attitudes toward vaccines, significantly enabling a comparison. However, the results may under-represent the most radical critics, who often avoid scientific surveys. Concrete health concerns caused vaccine hesitancy Vaccine hesitancy was mainly driven by concerns over health concerns, side effects and efficacy. Vaccine hesitancy was mainly grounded in concrete concerns about effectiveness and side effects, perception of low risk from COVID-19, mistrust of vaccine developers, and fear of vaccines – sometimes as a result of misinformation, the researchers found. The most prevalent categories of hesitancy, related to effectiveness and health concerns, declined substantially over time as 65% of hesitant participants received one or more vaccinations by May 2024. The reasons for initial vaccine hesitancy varied by demographic. Men were more likely to perceive themselves as not being at risk (17.9% versus 10.2% of women), while women more frequently cited concerns regarding fertility (21.2% versus 8.4% of men). Younger participants more frequently cited a fear of needles. Socio-economic deprivation and institutional mistrust are primary drivers of the reluctance to get a jab. Notably, Black participants were three times more likely to express hesitation than White participants. Experts interpreting the study also suggest this mistrust is frequently rooted in negative healthcare experiences or historically unequal treatment. Significantly, non-White participants were ultimately no less likely to be vaccinated at a later date. Communicative approaches key to successful campaigns Vaccine hesitancy is best countered by transparent, long-term, and evidence-based information provision, according to public health expert Sarah Eitze, researcher at the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour (IPB) at the University of Erfurt in Germany. Although the researchers did not test the success of specific communication efforts or interventions to shift attitudes toward vaccinations, the findings can be used in public health policy and future vaccination campaigns, according to Sarah Eitze, deputy director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Behavioural Research in Global Health. Transparent, continuous, and evidence-based information provision has proven to be effective, explained Eitze, who is a researcher at the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour (IPB) at the University of Erfurt (Germany). “Optimal communication about vaccination is most successful when we take a more evidence-based, target group-specific and long-term approach,” said Eitze. “The study shows that not every form of vaccine scepticism works in the same way. While uncertainty about information can often be addressed effectively, deeply rooted attitudes of rejection based on mistrust of institutions or science are much more difficult to overcome.” Image Credits: European Union/Martin Matev, Felix Sassmannshausen, European Union/Martin Matev, Lisa Wollenschläger/University of Erfurt. 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.
Despite La Niña, 2025 Was One of Warmest Years on Record 14/01/2026 Disha Shetty 2025 was among the top three warmest years on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The year 2025 was among the top three warmest years on record, according to the latest update from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Depending on the data set being used, the year was either the second or third warmest year on record. The UN agency for monitoring the atmosphere also confirmed that the past 11 years have been the 11 warmest on record, and ocean heating continues unabated. The global average surface temperature in 2025 was 1.44°C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13°C) above the 1850-1900 average that is used as a pre-industrial era baseline, WMO reported. “The year 2025 started and ended with a cooling La Niña and yet it was still one of the warmest years on record globally because of the accumulation of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. High land and ocean temperatures helped fuel extreme weather – heatwaves, heavy rainfall and intense tropical cyclones, underlining the vital need for early warning systems,” said WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo. This update from the WMO comes less than two months after global leaders met in Brazil’s Belém for the annual UN climate conference, COP30. It confirms that the climate action so far is proving to be woefully inadequate as the streak of extraordinary global temperatures continues unabated. A robust data set Annual global mean temperature anomalies relative to the 1850-1900 average shown from 1850 to 2025 for eight datasets as shown in the legend. What makes this data robust is that it is a consolidated analysis of eight different global datasets. Two of these datasets ranked 2025 as the second warmest year in the 176-year record, and the other six ranked it as the third warmest year. The past three years, 2023-2025, are the three warmest years in all eight datasets. The consolidated three-year average 2023-2025 temperature is 1.48 °C (with a margin of uncertainty of ± 0.13 °C) above the pre-industrial era. The past 11 years, 2015-2025, are the 11 warmest years in all eight datasets. “WMO’s state of the climate monitoring, based on collaborative and scientifically rigorous global data collection, is more important than ever before because we need to ensure that Earth information is authoritative, accessible and actionable for all,” said Saulo. The update was timed to coincide with the release of global temperature announcements from the respective dataset providers. One of the eight datasets is one from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the US agency that has had its funding cut by the Trump administration. Other data sets are from the European Union, Japan, China and the UK. Six of the eight datasets are based on measurements made at the weather stations, and by ships and buoys using statistical methods to fill gaps in the data. Two of the datasets combine past observations, including satellite data, with models to generate a consistent time series of multiple climate variables, including temperature. The actual global temperature in 2025 was estimated to be 15.08°C, but there is a much larger margin of uncertainty on the actual temperature at around 0.5°C than on the temperature anomaly for 2025, WMO said. Oceans continue to heat Ocean heat content continued to rise in 2025. Roughly 90% of excess heat in the atmosphere is absorbed by the world’s oceans, warming them in the process. This makes ocean heat a critical indicator of climate change. A separate study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences reports that ocean temperatures were also among the highest on record in 2025, reflecting the long-term accumulation of heat within the climate system. And while warming temperatures affect life on Earth, the warming oceans pose a threat to the coral reefs and life in the water. From 2024-2025, the global upper 2000m ocean heat content (OHC) increased by ∼23 ± 8 Zettajoules relative to 2024, according to the study led by Lijing Cheng with the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. That is around 200 times the world’s total electricity generation in 2024. Regionally, about 33% of the global ocean area ranked among its historical (1958–2025) top three warmest conditions. Another 57% fell within the top five, including the tropical and South Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, North Indian Ocean, and Southern Oceans, underscoring the broad ocean warming across basins. While the global annual mean sea surface temperature (SST) in 2025 was 0.12 ± 0.03°C lower than in 2024, it was 0.49°C above the 1981–2010 baseline, showing long-term warming trends. State of the Global Climate 2025 report A climate change protest While the current update was meant to give an indication of the global temperature trend, WMO’s State of the Global Climate 2025 report to be issued in March will go further. WMO will provide a detailed breakdown of key climate change indicators, including greenhouse gases, surface temperatures, ocean heat, sea level rise, glacier retreat and sea ice extent. The datasets being relied by the WMO provide a near-complete global picture of near-surface measurements using statistical methods to fill gaps in data-sparse areas such as the polar regions. Image Credits: WMO, WMO, WMO, Markus Spiske/ Unsplash. Most Vaccine Hesitancy can be Successfully Overcome, New Lancet Study Finds 14/01/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen A health worker getting vaccinated against COVID-19 in Bulgaria in 2021. Fears over the side effects of COVID-19 jabs, which led to initial vaccine hesitancy, mostly gave way to acceptance in the course of the pandemic, with only a small minority remaining unvaccinated due to deep-seated mistrust, a new major study published in The Lancet finds. For the first time, the study “Profiling vaccine attitudes and subsequent uptake in 1.1 million people in England” compared attitudes towards vaccinations with actual vaccination behaviour on a large scale. Based on the findings, health policy experts call for evidence-based, group-specific and long-term communicative approaches to counter vaccine hesitancy. Many of the initially hesitant individuals chose a wait-and-see approach. They were driven by concerns over side effects and efficacy, but eventually opted for the jab as real-world evidence of safety and efficacy grew. The benefit of vaccination was recognised by the majority of those initially hesitant, mainly due to public health communication, community outreach and vaccine rollout itself. “Our findings suggest that most COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy was rooted in concrete concerns that can be addressed and successfully overcome with time and increasing availability of information,” according to the principal authors, Paul Elliott, who is Chair in Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine at the Imperial College in London, and Marc Chadeau-Hyam, Professor of Computational Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Vaccine hesitancy plummeted once information was available Vaccine hesitancy plummeted with the vaccine rollout and information. According to the data, vaccine hesitancy decreased for the vast majority of initially hesitant individuals in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over time, 3.3% of all participants were categorised as hesitant towards the COVID-19 vaccine. Individuals were classified as “vaccine-hesitant” if they stated they would refuse the vaccine, had already refused it, or had not yet decided. Their number fluctuated, plummeting from 8% in January 2021 to 1.1% at the start of 2022, before rising again to 2.2% in February 2022. This slight rise might be the result of “pandemic fatigue” or a shift in “personal risk perception” in the course of the Omicron wave. The study data is based on the Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission (REACT) studies, which monitored the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in England during the COVID-19 pandemic from 1 May 1, 2020, to 31 March, 2022, in random samples of the population. The researchers linked consecutive survey data from 1.1 million adults in England to official National Health Service (NHS) health records. The participant questionnaires included queries about vaccination status and attitudes toward vaccines, significantly enabling a comparison. However, the results may under-represent the most radical critics, who often avoid scientific surveys. Concrete health concerns caused vaccine hesitancy Vaccine hesitancy was mainly driven by concerns over health concerns, side effects and efficacy. Vaccine hesitancy was mainly grounded in concrete concerns about effectiveness and side effects, perception of low risk from COVID-19, mistrust of vaccine developers, and fear of vaccines – sometimes as a result of misinformation, the researchers found. The most prevalent categories of hesitancy, related to effectiveness and health concerns, declined substantially over time as 65% of hesitant participants received one or more vaccinations by May 2024. The reasons for initial vaccine hesitancy varied by demographic. Men were more likely to perceive themselves as not being at risk (17.9% versus 10.2% of women), while women more frequently cited concerns regarding fertility (21.2% versus 8.4% of men). Younger participants more frequently cited a fear of needles. Socio-economic deprivation and institutional mistrust are primary drivers of the reluctance to get a jab. Notably, Black participants were three times more likely to express hesitation than White participants. Experts interpreting the study also suggest this mistrust is frequently rooted in negative healthcare experiences or historically unequal treatment. Significantly, non-White participants were ultimately no less likely to be vaccinated at a later date. Communicative approaches key to successful campaigns Vaccine hesitancy is best countered by transparent, long-term, and evidence-based information provision, according to public health expert Sarah Eitze, researcher at the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour (IPB) at the University of Erfurt in Germany. Although the researchers did not test the success of specific communication efforts or interventions to shift attitudes toward vaccinations, the findings can be used in public health policy and future vaccination campaigns, according to Sarah Eitze, deputy director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Behavioural Research in Global Health. Transparent, continuous, and evidence-based information provision has proven to be effective, explained Eitze, who is a researcher at the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour (IPB) at the University of Erfurt (Germany). “Optimal communication about vaccination is most successful when we take a more evidence-based, target group-specific and long-term approach,” said Eitze. “The study shows that not every form of vaccine scepticism works in the same way. While uncertainty about information can often be addressed effectively, deeply rooted attitudes of rejection based on mistrust of institutions or science are much more difficult to overcome.” Image Credits: European Union/Martin Matev, Felix Sassmannshausen, European Union/Martin Matev, Lisa Wollenschläger/University of Erfurt. 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
Most Vaccine Hesitancy can be Successfully Overcome, New Lancet Study Finds 14/01/2026 Felix Sassmannshausen A health worker getting vaccinated against COVID-19 in Bulgaria in 2021. Fears over the side effects of COVID-19 jabs, which led to initial vaccine hesitancy, mostly gave way to acceptance in the course of the pandemic, with only a small minority remaining unvaccinated due to deep-seated mistrust, a new major study published in The Lancet finds. For the first time, the study “Profiling vaccine attitudes and subsequent uptake in 1.1 million people in England” compared attitudes towards vaccinations with actual vaccination behaviour on a large scale. Based on the findings, health policy experts call for evidence-based, group-specific and long-term communicative approaches to counter vaccine hesitancy. Many of the initially hesitant individuals chose a wait-and-see approach. They were driven by concerns over side effects and efficacy, but eventually opted for the jab as real-world evidence of safety and efficacy grew. The benefit of vaccination was recognised by the majority of those initially hesitant, mainly due to public health communication, community outreach and vaccine rollout itself. “Our findings suggest that most COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy was rooted in concrete concerns that can be addressed and successfully overcome with time and increasing availability of information,” according to the principal authors, Paul Elliott, who is Chair in Epidemiology and Public Health Medicine at the Imperial College in London, and Marc Chadeau-Hyam, Professor of Computational Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Vaccine hesitancy plummeted once information was available Vaccine hesitancy plummeted with the vaccine rollout and information. According to the data, vaccine hesitancy decreased for the vast majority of initially hesitant individuals in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over time, 3.3% of all participants were categorised as hesitant towards the COVID-19 vaccine. Individuals were classified as “vaccine-hesitant” if they stated they would refuse the vaccine, had already refused it, or had not yet decided. Their number fluctuated, plummeting from 8% in January 2021 to 1.1% at the start of 2022, before rising again to 2.2% in February 2022. This slight rise might be the result of “pandemic fatigue” or a shift in “personal risk perception” in the course of the Omicron wave. The study data is based on the Real-time Assessment of Community Transmission (REACT) studies, which monitored the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in England during the COVID-19 pandemic from 1 May 1, 2020, to 31 March, 2022, in random samples of the population. The researchers linked consecutive survey data from 1.1 million adults in England to official National Health Service (NHS) health records. The participant questionnaires included queries about vaccination status and attitudes toward vaccines, significantly enabling a comparison. However, the results may under-represent the most radical critics, who often avoid scientific surveys. Concrete health concerns caused vaccine hesitancy Vaccine hesitancy was mainly driven by concerns over health concerns, side effects and efficacy. Vaccine hesitancy was mainly grounded in concrete concerns about effectiveness and side effects, perception of low risk from COVID-19, mistrust of vaccine developers, and fear of vaccines – sometimes as a result of misinformation, the researchers found. The most prevalent categories of hesitancy, related to effectiveness and health concerns, declined substantially over time as 65% of hesitant participants received one or more vaccinations by May 2024. The reasons for initial vaccine hesitancy varied by demographic. Men were more likely to perceive themselves as not being at risk (17.9% versus 10.2% of women), while women more frequently cited concerns regarding fertility (21.2% versus 8.4% of men). Younger participants more frequently cited a fear of needles. Socio-economic deprivation and institutional mistrust are primary drivers of the reluctance to get a jab. Notably, Black participants were three times more likely to express hesitation than White participants. Experts interpreting the study also suggest this mistrust is frequently rooted in negative healthcare experiences or historically unequal treatment. Significantly, non-White participants were ultimately no less likely to be vaccinated at a later date. Communicative approaches key to successful campaigns Vaccine hesitancy is best countered by transparent, long-term, and evidence-based information provision, according to public health expert Sarah Eitze, researcher at the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour (IPB) at the University of Erfurt in Germany. Although the researchers did not test the success of specific communication efforts or interventions to shift attitudes toward vaccinations, the findings can be used in public health policy and future vaccination campaigns, according to Sarah Eitze, deputy director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Behavioural Research in Global Health. Transparent, continuous, and evidence-based information provision has proven to be effective, explained Eitze, who is a researcher at the Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour (IPB) at the University of Erfurt (Germany). “Optimal communication about vaccination is most successful when we take a more evidence-based, target group-specific and long-term approach,” said Eitze. “The study shows that not every form of vaccine scepticism works in the same way. While uncertainty about information can often be addressed effectively, deeply rooted attitudes of rejection based on mistrust of institutions or science are much more difficult to overcome.” Image Credits: European Union/Martin Matev, Felix Sassmannshausen, European Union/Martin Matev, Lisa Wollenschläger/University of Erfurt. Posts navigation Older postsNewer posts