For most people, electing the regional director – or chief health officer – for the Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO) of the World Health Organization (WHO) will not set the pulse racing. Is this just another shuffling of chairs around the world’s bureaucratic table? Even among global health nerds, it will trigger just a faint tremor. […] Continue reading ->
PUNE, India – The World Health Organization’s (WHO) two-day summit on traditional medicine, held last week in the Indian city of Gandhinagar, was an attempt to start a dialogue about how to integrate evidence-based traditional medicine into modern medicine – but many were disconcerted about social media posts from the global health body that appeared […] Continue reading ->
Three more countries, Kenya, Cape Verde and Democratic Republic of Congo, have ratified the African Medicines Agency (AMA) Treaty recently – and Kenya’s ratification now means that most major East African countries are on board with the treaty. Twenty-six countries have now fully ratified the treaty, one of the steps required for the establishment of […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus recently announced he would not run to be the next United Nations (UN) Secretary General, adding that a woman should take that role. But what is the state of women’s representation in global health governance, and what does gender parity entail? Last week, Tedros told […] Continue reading ->
Russia’s war has had a devastating impact on healthcare provision in Ukraine. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recorded more than 1,100 attacks on its healthcare system since the invasion began on 24 February 2022, and more than one in 10 Ukrainian hospitals have been directly damaged by the war.In some areas occupied by Russia, […] Continue reading ->
Controversy continues to surround Dr Jean Kaseya, the new Director-General of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), although the organisation described the allegations as “unverified and baseless” over the weekend. Last Friday, online platform Devex reported on a letter from a group of Africa CDC staff to the head of the […] Continue reading ->
Mayors and other municipal officials should develop “urban heat maps” to identify and protect those most vulnerable to high temperatures, World Health Organization (WHO) official Maria Neira urged on Wednesday. Many people in urban areas stifling under heat waves cannot afford cooling systems while conditions for outdoor workers not protected by legislation have become dangerous, […] Continue reading ->
Merely months after securing US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for its Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine, British pharma giant GSK has taken Pfizer to court for patent violations. GSK filed the lawsuit in a US federal court in Delaware on Wednesday alleging that Pfizer’s RSV vaccine, Abrysvo, violates four patents surrounding the antigen […] Continue reading ->
US Consolidates Efforts to Address Pandemics, HIV and Other Global Health Threats into Single Bureau
The US has consolidated its efforts to address global health threats into a single structure, the Bureau of Global Heath Security and Diplomacy, which was launched on Monday. Renowned Cameroonian health expert Dr John Nkengasong, appointed last year to lead the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), leads the new structure and will […] Continue reading ->
While July saw a crush of global pandemic-related meetings – some joint and some clashing – to accommodate tight schedules and northern summer holidays, achieving a pandemic-proof world is still a long way off. The two pandemic negotiations underway at the World Health Organization (WHO) have held individual and joint meetings over the past few […] Continue reading ->