Category: Development

The Access to COVID-19 Tools – the ACT-Accelerator – along with its COVAX Facility, is a groundbreaking global collaboration to accelerate development, production, and equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines.  Launched at the end of April 2020, the ACT-Accelerator has secured $3 billion, critical for its start up, but it needs a further $35 billion – including an… Read More

On the margins of the General debate of the UN General Assembly, UN News spoke to UN Under-Secretary General for Global Communications, Melissa Fleming, and from the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Sylvie Briand, Director of Pandemic and Epidemic Diseases.   In a joint interview, they discussed how important it is for the UN to engage with the public, and… Read More

“They were fathers and mothers, wives and husbands, brothers and sisters, friends and colleagues,” he said in a statement on Monday.  Our world has reached an agonizing milestone: the loss of 1 million lives to #COVID19. We must never lose sight of each & every life. As the hunt for a vaccine — affordable and available to all — continues,… Read More

Protect the Progress: Rise, Refocus, Recover, 2020 highlights that since the movement was launched 10 years ago, spearheaded by then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, there has been remarkable progress in improving the health of the world’s women, children and adolescents, with under-five deaths reached an all-time recorded low in 2019, and more than 1 billion children were vaccinated over the past decade. Coverage… Read More

The updated recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO), come as the northern hemisphere braces for the seasonal bug, which claims hundreds of thousands of lives from respiratory-related causes every year. “There has in fact been an increased demand and we’re hearing now that countries that are trying to get influenza vaccine cannot get it”, said Dr Ann Moen, Chief, Influenza Preparedness… Read More

The pandemic is the first in history in which technology and social media are being used to both inform people and keep them connected, but also to undermine global response to the crisis and jeopardize measures to contain the disease, they explained.  “WHO & partners are calling on:-all countries to put in place natl. action plans to promote science-based health… Read More

Roughly 64 per cent of the global population lives in a nation that has either committed to, or is eligible to join, the coronavirus Vaccines Global Access Facility, or COVAX, which enables participating Governments to spread the risk and costs of vaccine development and provide their populations with early access to vaccines.  Working together through the COVAX Facility “is not… Read More

When radio host Tashia Kalondo visited a conservancy in Namibia, she didn’t realize just how close she would get to the wildlife. Ms. Kalondo had travelled widely and seen wildlife before, but when the camp staff said they’d have to camouflage the gate to their campsite with shrubs to prevent elephants from coming in overnight, she found it hard to… Read More

Gary Rynhart: When COVID-19 spread around the world, many migrants were shipped home unceremoniously or left to fend for themselves. Migrants have also – because of the sectors they work in, and the poor conditions in which many lower skilled migrants live and work – been vectors for spreading the virus. Examples we’ve seen include workers in meat factories in… Read More

Although the World Health Organization (WHO) and World Bank set up the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board (GPMB) two years ago to break the cycle, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a media press briefing that “reviews and reports are only as good as the recommendations that are implemented”.  “COVID-19 has shown that collectively, the world was woefully under prepared”, he… Read More