This story was originally published by The New Humanitarian. Just a few months into his new term, President Peter Mutharika is grappling with a triple crisis: a deep-seated food emergency, diminishing aid, and soaring debt. With over four million Malawians – 22% of the population – facing the threat of acute malnutrition until the next […] Continue reading ->
Two more senior WHO officials, Bruce Aylward and Ailan Li, who were among those dropped from WHO’s Senior Leadership Team during the first phase of an Agency shake-up, have now been appointed to leading roles elsewhere in the organisation, according to a memo from Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. Li, a Chinese national and […] Continue reading ->
The United Nations (UN) General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favour of a political declaration to combat non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and promote mental health on Monday, with 175 member states voting in favour, only the United States and Argentina voting against, and Paraguay as the only abstention. The declaration was due to have been adopted by […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) summit on traditional medicine (TM), which starts in India’s New Delhi on Wednesday (17 December), will push for more funding for research on traditional medicine. WHO wants to create a stronger evidence base for TM that will help to integrate it with health systems. Around 40% of today’s pharmaceutical products are […] Continue reading ->
A new treatment has been approved for gonorrhoea, a sexually transmitted infection (STI) that is increasingly developing resistance to all current antibiotics. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of zoliflodacin to treat uncomplicated gonorrhoea on Friday, following the publication in The Lancet of the results of a phase 3 trial of […] Continue reading ->
In Spain last winter, something remarkable happened: paediatric wards fell silent. “Hospitals were empty, and nobody could believe it,” said Dr Javier Díez-Domingo, director of the Vaccine Research Centre in Valencia. After the country introduced monoclonal antibodies against Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) for every infant, RSV-related hospitalisations dropped by 83%. Thousands of healthy babies stayed […] Continue reading ->
The Indian government claims that farm fires in Punjab, which contribute significantly to air pollution, were reduced by 90% during the autumn season of harvest and crop-waste disposal – historically a factor in sending heavy clouds of air pollution drifting around northern India in late October and November. But in this Earth Chakra podcast, Health […] Continue reading ->
The World Food Programme (WFP) is warning of a rapidly deteriorating humanitarian emergency in Sudan on Friday, with conditions in the besieged city of El Fasher in Sudan’s Darfour region described as “beyond horrific.” Speaking at a briefing to UN reporters in Geneva, Ross Smith, WFP’s Director of Emergency Preparedness, said “anywhere between 70 and […] Continue reading ->
Following eleven hours of intense negotiations overnight, the European Union (EU) clinched a landmark agreement on the most significant pharma reform of its medicines market in over 20 years on Thursday. Reached in the final moments of the Danish EU Presidency’s mandate, the deal aims to strike a critical balance stimulating pharma innovation, particularly for […] Continue reading ->
Avnee Singh, 25, from Punjab in northern India, begins each morning the same way: by opening an AI chatbot. For the past year, this digital companion has become her closest confidant, a space where she empties her thoughts about family tensions, work anxieties and, above all, the intense loneliness that followed the end of her […] Continue reading ->