Negotiations on a global pandemic accord resume next Monday at the fifth meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) amid calls for more attention to be paid to a One Health approach, and less to organised misinformation campaigns. The meeting agenda is an extension of the INB meeting that ended on […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) hopes to be able to fast-track the testing of various Marburg candidate vaccines following outbreaks of this rare and deadly viral haemorrhagic fever in Tanzania and Equatorial Guinea. “WHO is leading an effort to evaluate candidate vaccines and therapeutics in the context of the outbreak,” WHO Director General Dr Tedros […] Continue reading ->
BUKOBA, Tanzania – Scientists have identified the mystery disease that has killed five people in the last week in Tanzania’s north-western Kagera region as the highly contagious Marburg virus, which is a filovirus like Ebola. Health Minister Ummy Mwalimu announced this on Tuesday but said that her government has managed to control the spread of […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization on Wednesday said it is terminating the contract of the Director for the agency’s Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO), following a prolonged investigation of allegations of abusive conduct towards his staff.  The terse WHO announcement came at the conclusion of a two-day special session of the WHO Executive Board, tasked with […] Continue reading ->
WHO’s Executive Board is set to meet again next week in a special closed session to consider the fate of the Regional Director of WHO’s Western Pacific Regional Office (WPRO), who has been accused of racism and harassment of staff at the Manila-based office.   In a meeting earlier this week, WHO member states from the […] Continue reading ->
“We have never experienced such killings,” says an aid work as local health centres struggle to help survivors deal with mental health problems in the aftermath of increasingly brutal attacks by the Islamic rebel group, Allied Democratic Forces.  Of the more than 100 armed groups active in DRC’s eastern provinces, one of the oldest and […] Continue reading ->
Following a first-ever outbreak of deadly Marburg virus disease in Equatorial Guinea, the World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday called an emergency meeting of the Marburg virus vaccine consortium (MARVAC) to receive an urgent update on possible vaccine candidates for the filovirus that can have an 80% fatality rate.   At the meeting, the agency received […] Continue reading ->