A paradigm shift towards health systems and societies that emphasize health promotion, disease prevention and environmental protection could prevent and reduce 50% of the global disease burden worldwide, experts at an informal session on the margins of the 74th World Health Assembly said on Thursday. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the inextricable relationships between environments […] Continue reading ->
In two decades of work on World Bank digital health initiatives, global health policy specialist Akiko Maeda found many fell short of their promises. She suggested these underperforming digital health initiatives focused too much on delivering hardware — but they failed to provide means to ensure stable electricity supplies, and similarly failed to provide adequate […] Continue reading ->
China told the World Health Assembly on Wednesday it will continue to support developing countries’ access to affordable COVID-19 vaccines – but it stopped short of any commitment to supplying its recently-approved Sinopharm vaccine to the WHO co-sponsored Global COVAX vaccine facility. WHO officials had said they hoped China would join the COVAX facility, following […] Continue reading ->
Conquering the COVID-19 pandemic will inevitably be the main topic for discussion at the impending 74th session of the World Health Assembly, which begins Monday, 24 May. Global health experts weighed in this week at a series of briefings on what to expect from at the upcoming event. Geneva Solution’s Pokuaa Oduro Bonsrah reports: The […] Continue reading ->
A group of 18 prominent scientists, primarily based in the United States, have called for further investigations into the origins of the SARS-CoV2 virus, including that it could have been created in the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab, in a letter published on Thursday in the journal Science. The letter, organised by David Relman, Professor […] Continue reading ->
ISLAMABAD – Pakistan authorities are threatening to fire healthcare workers who refuse to be vaccinated with the Chinese-donated SinoPharm COVID-19 vaccine. In a harshly worded letter, , the Directorate of Health Services in Sindh warns frontline health care workers that reluctance to get the jab will result in “strict disciplinary action” including suspension or dismissal […] Continue reading ->
One year after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic on 11 March 2020, a new report by the Foundation for Geneva has traced the success and the failures of the WHO and other international Geneva organisations in their response – as well as the implications for the future of multilateralism. […] Continue reading ->
‘Planetary health’ describes how the limits of natural resources like clean air, water and food production shape our long-term health, with climate change as a “threat-multiplier” for future COVID-19 like crises. Experts at the Geneva Health Forum explored the links, ahead of next week’s launch of the 2020 Lancet Countdown Report on Health and Climate […] Continue reading ->
The World Bank will make available up to $12 billion in “fast-track financing” that low- and middle-income countries can access to procure vaccines against Covid-19 – as soon as one is approved, said the Bank’s president David Malpass, on Wednesday. The announcement at a United Nations high-level panel on the pandemic that also included commitments […] Continue reading ->
The ‘infodemic’ is one of the “most concerning” governance challenges of our time, undermining trust in science in the midst of the pandemic, and threatening people’s physical and mental health, warned United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Administrator Achim Steimer. While the overabundance of misinformation – or ‘infodemic – is not new, it has blown out […] Continue reading ->