An outbreak of Marburg, a highly infectious haemorrhagic fever, has been reported in western Uganda. The outbreak was discovered after a child died, according to Reuters, while Stat reports that two cases of Marburg were reported to the World Health Organization (WHO) this week. Uganda is already trying to contain an outbreak of Ebola Bundibugyo […] Continue reading ->
This is a fact: a new pandemic threat is not a question of if, but when. Armed with this knowledge, all leaders must ask themselves: Are we ready, and what more must be done to protect our people and avoid an Ebola- or COVID-sized catastrophe? Over the last decade, outbreak and pandemic monitoring bodies and […] Continue reading ->
What’s left to tackle in the PABS talks? As the clock ran out, and then was extended for another year, on negotiations over the Pandemic Agreement’s Annex on Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS), the diplomacy and the nitty-gritty of the issues faced were deeply linked This edition of the Governing Pandemics Snapshot of the Geneva […] Continue reading ->
Three leading Geneva-based non-profit organisations involved in the research and development (R&D) of “effective, affordable, and life-saving medicines” are pooling resources to address the growing unmet needs of the world’s most vulnerable patients. The Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi), the Global Antibiotic Research and Development Partnership (GARDP), and Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) announced […] Continue reading ->
The recent hantavirus outbreak triggered a wave of disinformation along similar lines to the COVID-19 pandemic: the virus was “fake”, “deliberately engineered”, and could be “cured” by Ivermectin. In the past week, furious community members have attacked and torched tents housing Ebola patients at Mongbwalu General Referral Hospital in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) […] Continue reading ->
WHO emergency funds are running low, and global health leaders are concerned about a systemic paralysis in pandemic preparedness. In high-level discussions in Geneva, experts explored the geopolitical rifts, pitting the Global South’s demand to treat pandemic tools as legally binding “public goods” against a European push for market-driven surge financing. As a severe Ebola […] Continue reading ->
The 79th World Health Assembly adopted the first-ever resolution on steatotic liver disease (SLD) last week. For those people working outside hepatology, the moment may have seemed unremarkable. In reality, it marks an important shift in how the global health community understands chronic disease, metabolic health and prevention. SLD affects an estimated 1.7 billion people […] Continue reading ->