Sweden pledged to increase its support to the Global Fund by 14%, committing some SEK 2.85 billion (US $290 million) over the next three years, one of the latest in a line of donors to step to the call of the Global Fund’s Sixth Replenishment Conference, coming up next week on October 9-10 in Lyon. […] Continue reading ->
NEW YORK CITY (September 20, 2019) – Thousands of people have flooded streets here today as part of a worldwide movement to demand climate action. 4 million people in over 150 countries around the world took to the streets in a global Climate Strike. The New York Climate Strike is one of over a thousand […] Continue reading ->
Facebook has begun rolling out a new algorithm that directs users searching for vaccine information to the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) website, in the case of US-based searches, and for users elsewhere, the World Health Organization website, as a top search pick. The move was welcomed by WHO, officials at CDC, and […] Continue reading ->
Only a month after a hotly-contested World Health Assembly resolution touched off a debate around “price transparency” as a way to improve access to medicines, a new controversy over how to stimulate access has emerged in another UN Forum, the Human Rights Council. This time the debate is around ways to “delink” incentives for the […] Continue reading ->
In a surprise appearance before the 2019 Congress of the International Council of Nurses, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that investing in a stronger nursing workforce is essential for achieving universal health coverage (UHC). He proposed that “every country bring one nurse and one midwife to the World Health Assembly next year,” as […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) today launched a global AWaRe campaign, which aims to support national health systems to make more judicious use of lifesaving drugs so as to combat a worldwide trend of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) – including increased pathogen resistance to common antibiotics, antivirals and anti-fungal medications. However, WHO’s own 2018 Report on […] Continue reading ->
A new Knowledge Portal that aims to ease policymakers’ access to reliable information about themes in medicines access, pricing and pharma innovation was launched today by the Global Health Centre of Geneva’s Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. The Portal currently covers some 17 topics grouped under three broad themes – Pricing, Intellectual Property […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization held an information session with member states and non-state actors last week to present the detailed findings of its 2018 report on cancer medicines pricing. It then posted the 72 detailed slides from the information session on its website. Image Credits: WHO. Continue reading ->
Scientists from a range of countries are calling for an update to World Health Organization guidelines on biosimilar products in order to help national authorities better implement policies to make biosimilars less costly. Current guidelines are outdated and are being misused, they say. But a WHO official told Health Policy Watch the guidelines document should not be made “over-prescriptive”, and that a thorough assessment by an expert group last year found a revision unnecessary but will keep considering it. Continue reading ->
Italy’s Minister of Health spoke out publicly today at a press conference in Rome on the proposed World Health Assembly resolution on drug price transparency, while an open letter published on the Ministry’s website called on other World Health Organization member states to support the initiative. Continue reading ->