The latest draft of the pandemic agreement, while deferring many operational issues, keeps equity hopes alive in many aspects – including by cementing in-principle agreements on a pathogen access and benefit-sharing (PABS) system, a global supply chain and logistics network and geographically diverse “capacities and institutions” for research and development. READ: WHO Pandemic Agreement draft_16 […] Continue reading ->
The fractious pandemic agreement talks – supposed to end with an agreement on Thursday (28 March) – have limped into extra time, with World Health Organization (WHO) member states resolving to hold an additional intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) meeting from 29 April to 10 May. The World Health Assembly (WHA), which begins on 27 May, […] Continue reading ->
Pharmaceutical giants could support a formula whereby companies are guaranteed free and immediate access to pathogens with pandemic potential in exchange for binding equity agreements as part of a proposed World Health Organization (WHO) pandemic agreement, says a leading industry figure.    The statement by Thomas Cueni, director-general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers […] Continue reading ->
Two final – and likely sleepless – weeks of negotiation on the pandemic agreement begin on Monday, and negotiators have been urged to bring in their principals to ensure speed up decision-making. The negotiations may well be extended but, for now, this ninth meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO) intergovernmental negotiating body (INB) is […] Continue reading ->
In January, Ugandan LGBTQ activist Steven Kabuye was stabbed multiple times by two men travelling on a motorbike and left for dead on the outskirts of Kampala, the country’s capital city. The 25-year-old, who had received several death threats after Uganda’s Parliament passed its Anti-Homosexuality Act last May, criminalising LGBTQ people, said that the attackers […] Continue reading ->
The Tenth Conference of Parties (COP10) of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) sidestepped a controversial debate on e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products – effectively kicking the can on any decisions related to regulation of that swelling market to the next meeting in two years time. However, the parties at the conference, […] Continue reading ->