Category: Development

Presenting the findings of a six-month accountability report, Co-chairs Helen Clark, former President of New Zealand, and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former President of Liberia, warned that “uneven” progress in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause illness, deaths and economic losses.   Calling for Heads of State and Government to come together to make faster progress, especially at the UN General Assembly, the two leaders pointed out that with much of the groundwork done, now is the time to end the… Read More

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, alongside celebrities, First Ladies, cancer survivors and health and community organizations, have united to raise awareness and mobilize efforts, one year after the UN agency launched a landmark global initiative on cervical cancer elimination.  ‘We have the tools’  They pointed to inequalities in accessing lifesaving tools and treatment, similar to what is happening during the… Read More

In a joint declaration on Tuesday, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) committed to assisting the School Meals Coalition in which over 60 countries envision a nutritious meal in school for every child in need by 2030. Led… Read More

The oral antiviral therapy PF-07321332 is designed to block the activity of the SARS-CoV-2-3CL protease, an enzyme the coronavirus needs to replicate.  It is administered together with low dose ritonavir, used in some treatments for HIV and hepatitis C.  Landmark agreement  The agreement will allow the UN-backed Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) to sub-license PF-07321332 for production and distribution by qualified… Read More

And according to the fourth WHO global tobacco trends report, that number is expected to continue to drop to 1.27 billion by 2025.    Sixty countries are now on track to achieving the voluntary global target of a 30% per cent reduction by 2025, an increase from two years ago, when only 32 countries were on course.  Encouraging news  For WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus, the numbers are very encouraging, but more work must be done.  “We still have a long way… Read More

The low cost is possible thanks to a new partnership between the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), MedAccess and SD Biosensor.  Each year, around 1.3 million women living with HIV become pregnant and just under one million pregnant women are infected with syphilis.    Despite affordable diagnostics and treatment being available, undiagnosed and untreated infections continue to affect the lives of many mothers and their children.  An exciting development  According to WHO, the rapid diagnostic… Read More

Almost 27 thousand deaths were reported in the continent last week, more than half of all COVID-19 deaths globally.   Speaking to journalists in Geneva, WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus explained that the virus is not only surging in countries with lower vaccination rates in Eastern Europe, but also in nations with some of the world’s highest vaccination rates in Western Europe.   “It’s another reminder, as we have said again and again,… Read More

Keeping the 100-year-old promise – making insulin access universal details the main barriers to accessing the lifesaving medicine, namely high prices, low availability of human insulin, a market dominated by just a few producers, and weak health systems.  Profit over solidarity  The 🆕 WHO report on global access to #insulin shows how a century after its discovery, insulin remains inaccessible or… Read More

The call was made this Wednesday by WHO Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, at a meeting with foreign ministers hosted by the United States.   “Nearly 80 countries, half of them in Africa, will not reach our 40% vaccination target without your help. To reach that target, we need an additional 550 million doses”, Tedros informed.   Urgent action  The WHO chief asked countries which have already reached high coverage rates, to give their place in the queue to COVAX and… Read More

Almost all international support came to a halt, and it seemed certain that for health workers in lifesaving facilities throughout the crisis-wracked nation, and the millions they serve, things would only get worse. But then, as one midwife* recalled, in testimony exclusively supplied to UN News, the support started coming, thanks to a groundbreaking new agreement led by the UN’s… Read More