IBADAN – Nigeria’s former finance minister and board chair of Gavi, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, was on track to be named World Trade Organization’s (WTO) first female and first African Director-General (DG) until the US government blocked her appointment, throwing the final decision to a November 9 meeting of the WTO Council of Ministers.   Shy of […] Continue reading ->
University of Basel. Researchers from Basel and Spain have identified a novel SARS-CoV-2 variant that has spread widely across Europe in recent months, according to an un-peer-reviewed preprint released this week in medRixv. While there is no evidence of this variant being more dangerous, its spread may give insights into the efficacy of travel policies […] Continue reading ->
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, board chair of Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, on Wednesday was named as the favored candidate to be the next World Trade Organization director-general  – after a months-long WTO campaign process and in a decisive moment of the COVID-19 pandemic. But as the United States came out in favor of the Republic of Korea’s […] Continue reading ->
After weeks of inaction, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has signalled that it will create a comprehensive law to halt rice stubble burning in rural areas of northern India, where drifting smoke from thousands of fires is a major contributor to Delhi’s annual autumn air pollution emergencies. But experts remain skeptical, stating that there are […] Continue reading ->
New modes of interagency collaboration triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic should be used as a model to advance more progress, post-pandemic, on important Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to health, said a group of top international agency leaders in Tuesday’s closing session of the World Health Summit. The three-day summit, which featured 310 speakers at […] Continue reading ->
At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of health systems – digital health technologies are playing a fast-expanding role – showing their revolutionary potential to address old and new needs and gaps, said participants on a Digital Health panel at the World Health Summit on Monday.  “COVID-19 is the first pandemic […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Summit, one of global health’s premier policy conferences got underway today in the shadow of an escalating COVID-19 case surge across Europe. The surge saw WHS sessions shift to an all-virtual platform – after organizers were forced to shelve initial plans for limited in-person participation in Berlin, where the annual conference co-hosted […] Continue reading ->
The COVID-19 pandemic will end at some point. But TB, tobacco use, air pollution and other lung diseases will continue to “steal the breath and life of millions of people every year”, unless we reimagine the future, said WHO’s director-general Dr Tedros Adhanon Ghebreyesus, appearing at the opening of the 51st Union World Conference On […] Continue reading ->