A series of new COVID-19 drug and vaccine funding commitments worth just over US$300 million were announced on Thursday by the Gates Foundation, France and the European Commission – amidst a quickening pace of anticipation that at least one, if not two, COVID-19 vaccines may soon become available.  Appearing at the Paris Peace Forum, Melinda […] Continue reading ->
Breast milk substitutes, long decried by global health specialists, are making new inroads into the markets of poor countries during the COVID-19 pandemic – including through new and more effective modes of digital marketing. Guidelines for distributing and donating such substitutes to households facing hunger and malnourishment due to the economic fallout of COVID-19 lockdowns, […] Continue reading ->
Two competing approaches to promote access to medicines were born during the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the year 2000. Today, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, these same approaches are once more on a collision course.  On the one side is the ‘international’ COVID response, led in name by WHO, but in fact by what […] Continue reading ->
As the World Health Organization convened its Executive Board of 33 select member states last week for the first time since May, the United States appeared to be fully back inside the WHO boardroom – despite the fact that President Donald Trump had announced in July that he would leave the global health organisation due […] Continue reading ->
The United States on Tuesday gave conditional praise for the “progress made” by an independent oversight committee examining the response of the WHO’s Health Emergencies Programme to the COVID-19 pandemic – asking for more updates in November and early 2021. The report by the Independent Oversight and Advisory Committee (IOAC) to WHO’s Health Emergencies operations […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization will establish a new high level review of the Organization’s capacity to respond todisease outbreaks in the framework of the International Health Regulations (IHR) that govern emergency response.  The aim is to ensure that WHO is “as effective as possible in operations as they unfold,” announced Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus […] Continue reading ->
Italy has become the first nation to require pharmaceutical companies to disclose secret data about any public subsidies it may have received for the development of a new drug, during negotiations over drug pricing and reimbursement with national regulatory authorities, according to a decree published Friday in the nation’s official gazette. The decree, following on […] Continue reading ->