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 ->
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 ->
Three emerging threats to health: the commercial, digital, and climate determinants of health played centre stage at an event 40 years after a WHO charter shifted the focus of health from individual lifestyle choices to broader social and environmental determinants. Commercial formula company practices are just one case study of how structural factors like marketing […] Continue reading ->
The 79th World Health Assembly adopted a widely anticipated Global Health Architecture Reform initiative. While WHO and many member states lauded it as a landmark move, the actual mandate is, in fact, highly restrictive. The process will not yield recommendations on “revisions to organizational mandates nor specific mergers or consolidations” in the often overlapping functions […] Continue reading ->
Liver disease, social media harms and health taxes dominated the World Health Assembly’s (WHA) discussion on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) on Thursday. For the first time, countries resolved to include steatotic liver disease (SLD), which is closely linked to obesity and diabetes, into NCD plans.  Formerly known as fatty liver disease, SLD  affects an estimated 1.7 […] Continue reading ->
While the health harms of biomass cookstoves, and the smoke they produce inside the homes of developing countries has received significant attention in the past two decades, a wide range of chemical and pathogenic air pollutants create hazards in modern homes and buildings – also threatening health. Investments in ventilation, air filtration, monitoring, and clean […] Continue reading ->
Neither Russia’s delegate banging her desk to interrupt Ukraine’s representative speaking at the World Health Assembly (WHA), nor her request to dismiss debate, stopped member states from condemning Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s health system. A report by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Director-General before delegates estimated that Russia’s aggression on Ukraine has caused 55,600 civilian […] Continue reading ->
As Europe grapples with shifting demographics and an influx of migration, researchers are mapping how undocumented migrants navigate the administrative cracks of the continent’s healthcare systems – helping to fill a critical data gap identified by the World Health Organization. Inside the neoclassical venue of La Pastorale in Geneva, around 30 participants from six European […] Continue reading ->