Some 5.6 billion people – 71% of the world’s population – are now covered by at least one tobacco protection policy adopted by their national governments, according to a new World Health Organization (WHO) report published today. That is five times more people than were protected in 2007, when the comprehensive set of anti-smoking policies, […] Continue reading ->
The thorny and unresolved issues of how to incorporate health equity measures and supportive finance for low and middle income countries into revisions of the WHO International Health Regulations (IHR), are set to be two key items on the agenda of an IHR negotiating body when talks resume again in early October. This was one […] Continue reading ->
Thirty-seven countries have received grants worth $338 million from the Pandemic Fund to boost their resilience to pandemics in the first round of the fund’s disbursements. Three disbursements involve multi-country grants: to 12 Caribbean countries to strengthen their early warning surveillance, build laboratory systems and workforce development; to seven Latin American countries to engage communities […] Continue reading ->
The final reading of the Political Declaration for the United Nations High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response (PPPR) is scheduled for Tuesday in New York – and while the revised text has a few more practical clauses than the bland zero-draft, it remains more aspirational than actionable. The draft Political Declaration, which has […] Continue reading ->
With the fate and nature of the pandemic accord currently being negotiated by World Health Organization (WHO) member states still uncertain, global health experts are calling for “realistic” backup plans to protect the world against the next pandemic. “We need an ambitious but implementable pandemic accord – that is the Holy Grail,” Javier Guzman, Director […] Continue reading ->
Brazil is the first country in the world to introduce tafenoquine, the first new single-dose treatment for P. vivax malaria developed in 70 years, in its public health system. Raquel da Silva has lived in Manaus in Brazil’s Amazonas State since her childhood. Today she shares her home on the banks of the Rio Negro […] Continue reading ->
On a partly cloudy morning last week, staff and onlookers watched with excitement and curiosity as a drone carrying polio vaccine doses was launched from the Matawale Health Centre in Zomba in eastern Malawi. The drone was being sent to Chisi Island, one of the hard-to-reach parts of this district that is often left out of […] Continue reading ->
With the sixth meeting of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) meeting to develop a pandemic accord currently underway in Geneva, the World Health Organization (WHO) chief minced no words when he slammed “groups with vested interests” for trying to sabotage the negotiations. “Twenty years ago, the tobacco industry tried to undermine negotiations on the WHO […] Continue reading ->
Routine childhood immuniaztions rebounded in 2022 from the set-backs of the COVID pandemic. But coverage still fell short of pre-COVID numbers in 2019, with 20.5 million children missing out on one or more routine vaccines last year as compared to 18.4 million in 2019. The new data is contained in a report published jointly Tuesday […] Continue reading ->
Women Deliver, one of the world’s largest gatherings on gender equity and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), opened in Kigali in Rwanda on Monday amid a global backlash against abortion. “We’re facing enormous headwinds against gender equality, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate crisis, and a growing anti-rights movement worldwide,” said Maliha Khan, […] Continue reading ->