Lawrence O. Gostin is “confident” that countries will adopt a pandemic accord at the 2024 World Health Assembly. The question is whether it will include the kind of “robust norms” necessary to ensure that the new accord is “transformative” with respect to correcting disparities and injustices uncovered in the last pandemic, and effective in its […] Continue reading ->
Leading global health experts and activists have expressed frustration and disappointment at the draft political declarations on pandemics, universal health coverage (UHC) and tuberculosis that world leaders are expected to adopt at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) next week. Key criticisms of the three declarations are that they offer no advancement on previous international […] Continue reading ->
Strengthening Africa’s medicines regulatory framework is key to achieving the “bold goal” of having 60% of the continent’s vaccines produced locally by 2040, said Margareth Ndomondo-Sigonda, head of health at the African Union’s development agency, AUDA-NEPAD. But only 7% of African country’s national medicines regulatory agencies (NMRA) have “moderately developed capacity”, and more than 90% […] Continue reading ->
Ahead of next week’s United Nations Summit on the Social Development Goals, a new report asserts that a few simple measures could slash the deaths of mothers and babies A series of relatively simple interventions could save the lives of millions of mothers and babies and put the world on course to achieve the Sustainable […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) will host a summit on air pollution in Accra, Ghana in 2024, the organization announced on Thursday. The summit will be the second ever to address air pollution, which is responsible for millions of premature deaths each year, and the first to be held in Africa. The announcement was made […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) has dismissed Dr Maurizio Barbeschi, former head of its Health Security Unit, for sexual misconduct after a three-year investigation that started in January 2020, according to The Telegraph. Barbeschi had been on administrative leave since late 2021 as the global body investigated complaints against him, including that he removed his […] Continue reading ->
A draft political declaration on pandemics, due to be adopted by the United Nations General Assembly later this month, offers “little hope” that the UN process will make a difference in global pandemic preparedness, global health experts said on Friday. The document, made public on Thursday, is long on words but short on commitments. The […] Continue reading ->
The best way to pandemic-proof the world is through ‘last-mile innovation’ based on strong regional and subregional research and development (R&D) hubs that can tackle disease outbreaks before they become pandemics. These hubs should be led by local scientists and have the capacity to adapt established technologies without intellectual property restrictions to produce vaccines, treatments […] Continue reading ->
After a two-week hiatus in negotiations, United Nations (UN) member states this week received a third draft of the Political Declaration being developed for the High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response on 20 September. The declaration was supposed to have been finalised by early August and put under silence procedure but member states […] Continue reading ->
Botswana’s approach to health is an example to the African continent, with strong leadership, investment in research and development and universal health services available for a nominal charge, said Dr Jean Kaseya, head of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). Kaseya was speaking on Monday at the opening of the World […] Continue reading ->