Rotary, a global network of community leaders dedicated to tackling the world’s most pressing humanitarian challenges, recently announced nearly US$100 million in grants to support the global effort to end polio, a vaccine-preventable disease that once paralyzed hundreds of thousands of children each year. Continue reading ->
Image Credits: Rotary Bruxelles.
In his first annual letter since taking office in July last year, the director-general of the World Health Organization has outlined the importance of political commitment, a key to success to – finally – achieve health for all. Continue reading ->
Image Credits: WHO.
Some 8 million people living in remote areas in Liberia, Uganda and Kenya will get support to access lifesaving vaccines, as a result of a new partnership between Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the Audacious Project, Last Mile Health and Living Goods. The aim is to use digital technology to boost the number of community health workers as well as to integrate immunization information and data-capture into their daily routines. Continue reading ->
Image Credits: Last Mile Health.
Bloomberg Philanthropies has named the organisations to lead a new $20 million global tobacco industry watchdog, STOP (Stopping Tobacco Organisations and Products), to counter tobacco industry influence and reduce tobacco use.Continue reading ->
Image Credits: Bloomberg Philanthropies.
The World Health Organization, UNICEF, and member companies of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA) will meet this week at WHO in Geneva to discuss global and regional supply chain strategies and initiatives related to global health. Continue reading ->
The European Medicines Agency (EMA), which is oversees the scientific evaluation, supervision and safety of medicines in the European Union, will scale back activities through 2019 due to significant staff loss when it moves from London to Amsterdam in March 2019 as a result of Brexit. Some of the areas that could be affected include the agency’s work at the international level on supply chain integrity, antimicrobial resistance, vaccines, and clinical data analysis. Continue reading ->
Access to powerful painkillers, usually based on opioid substances, is a crucial part of progress towards tackling NCDs, according to the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), a UN quasi-judicial body that is concerned with enforcing three global drug control conventions. Continue reading ->
Image Credits: International Narcotics Control Board and WHO Global Health Estimates, 2015. See additional online material for methods..
The delivery of poor quality health services is spiraling health costs globally and holding back progress in improving health in both developing and rich nations alike warns a joint report by the OECD, World Health Organization, and the World Bank. Continue reading ->
As the 2018 International AIDS Conference kicks off in Amsterdam (23-27 July), Gottfried Hirnschall, Director of the HIV/AIDS Department and the Global Hepatitis Programme of the World Health Organization, discussed in a wide-ranging interview with John Zarocostas for Health Policy Watch the advances, setbacks, and challenges ahead in the global fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic. On 18 July, a new report by UNAIDS warned that new infections are rising in around 50 countries, and that AIDS-related deaths are not falling fast enough and flat resources are threatening success.
Dr Hirnschall leads the WHO’s work in development and implementation of cutting-edge normative policies and guidance, and of technical support to countries to scale up national responses to HIV and hepatitis. He also oversees the Global Hepatitis Programme, which coordinates the organisation’s response to viral hepatitis. Hirnschall holds an MD from the University of Vienna, Austria, and an MPH from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Continue reading ->
Image Credits: WHO.
Three international organisations playing a key role in the global effort to address rising human resistance to known antibiotics today announced a report on efforts at the national level worldwide, including with animal health, recognised as one of the key sources of resistance. In sum: progress is being made, but “serious gaps remain.” Continue reading ->