Africa’s COVID-19 rollout is anticipated for Spring 2021, despite the continent’s low vaccine preparedness, multiple health leaders in Africa have said, as policy advisory groups flag the importance that other successful immunization campaigns will have on COVID recovery. At a press briefing on Thursday, Dr. John Nkengasong, Director of Africa CDC, said: “Africa may have […] Continue reading ->
Médecins Sans Frontières. As the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to derail the global response to tuberculosis (TB), Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders (MSF) called on governments to accelerate testing, treatment, and prevention for TB, and called on donors to provide the financial support needed to ensure increased access to new medical tools for diagnosing and treating […] Continue reading ->
Many Geneva-based health agencies have worked together for years to improve global access to diagnostics and treatment, but the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated much closer collaboration and speedier decision-making. This is according to experts from the WHO co-sponsored  “ACT Accelerator” medicine access partnership – including UNITAID, the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND), and the […] Continue reading ->
This year’s 73rd edition of the World Health Assembly resumes virtually on Monday, after a two-day emergency huddle in May – against sharply rising COVID-19 infection rates in Europe and the United States, deep geopolitical divides – and calls for reform of the WHO that could strengthen its mandate but also may be resisted by […] Continue reading ->
BRAZZAVILLE – The COVID-19 pandemic has dealt a heavy blow to key health services in Africa, raising worries that some of the continent’s major health challenges could worsen. A preliminary analysis by the World Health Organization (WHO) of five key essential health service indicators finds a sharp decline in these services between January and September […] Continue reading ->
Two competing approaches to promote access to medicines were born during the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the year 2000. Today, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, these same approaches are once more on a collision course.  On the one side is the ‘international’ COVID response, led in name by WHO, but in fact by what […] 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 ->
Current levels of public reluctance to be immunized with  a forthcoming COVID-19 vaccine are so high that the resistance would in fact pre-empt many countries from reaching sufficient levels of “community” immunity, according to a new study of vaccine hesitancy among people in 19 of the most COVID-impacted countries around the world. The study of […] Continue reading ->