Germany and France are proposing sweeping reforms to strengthen the World Health Organization and ramp up funding for the agency. A draft paper circulated by the two countries outlines ten key reforms to boost the WHO’s legal authority and funding, while also increasing oversight of the agency’s emergency operations, according to Reuters, which obtained a […] Continue reading ->
Six months into the pandemic, the rapidly evolving science behind COVID-19 has complicated efforts to clamp down on the virus’ rampage around the world. Geneva Solutions asked Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health at the University of Geneva, and leading voice on COVID-19 science in the region, how we can take swift […] Continue reading ->
United Kingdom Secretary of State for Health Matt Hancock’s announcement to replace Public Health England (PHE) with a new agency focused on biosecurity and infectious disease threats has drawn widespread criticism from health experts. The Health Secretary announced that PHE will be replaced with a new National Institute for Health Protection (NIHP) in a speech […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization recommended postponing routine dental visits in areas with community transmission of COVID-19 in new guidelines released last week. Many dental procedures can generate aerosols, or tiny solid or liquid particles that contain disease-causing pathogens. If dentists were unknowningly treating coronavirus infected patients, aerosols laden with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, […] Continue reading ->
A World Health Organization spokesperson on Friday said that the Organization is not well-positioned to make specific recommendations about when, where, and how travelers should be tested or quarantined for COVID-19 as countries reopen aviation, deferring the policy question to national governments. “Some of it is really dependent on what your national authorities ask of […] Continue reading ->
Environmentalists and scientists have called out the recent Indian Supreme Court decision directing the government to install “smog towers” in Delhi as an injudicious move that will lead to a waste of public money. The opposition escalated after the Court on Tuesday, ordered the government to begin installing the smog towers within the next week. […] Continue reading ->
European legislation on drugs for rare diseases is “far from perfect”, but it is not a ‘failure’ given the amount of private sector investment it has attracted in the past two decades, says Yann Le Cam, CEO of EURORDIS – Rare Diseases Europe, a non-profit alliance of some 930 rare disease patient organisations across 72 […] Continue reading ->
Amidst the battle against a new infectious threat, the fight against tuberculosis, one of humankind’s oldest recorded infectious diseases, is also progressing. Pretomanid – only the second TB drug to hit the market in over two decades – received conditional marketing approval Monday from the European Commission as part of a new, three-drug treatment regimen […] 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 ->
In a landmark achievement, incidence of chronic hepatitis B has successfully dropped below 1% in children under five, reaching the 2020 goal set at the 2016 World Health Assembly, said World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanon Ghebreyesus on Monday. The target reduction in hepatitis B virus (HBV) incidence in children was met in 2019, […] Continue reading ->