Ahead of the global eruption of monkeypox cases, outbreaks of the disease were already increasing in West and Central Africa, where it has sporadically appeared for decades. For researchers in the region, it’s a familiar cycle, like the West African Ebola outbreak that began in 2013, when attention and resources to an existing pathogen only increase after the disease threatens the global north. Read more.
After more than 20 months of debate, the World Trade Organization is only days away from a self-imposed deadline to reach consensus on an agreement to waive at least some intellectual property protections in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The real question is whether such a deal even exists. Read more.
Global hunger is at unprecedented levels, with an estimated 276 million people facing severe food shortages — and at least three countries at risk of famine. With food prices soaring, supply chains disrupted and the conflict in Ukraine blocking access to vital reserves, experts fear the crisis could deepen. How did we get here and what can be done about it? Read more.
Champion of legal medicine in Portugal. He was born on April 3, 1934 in Porto, Portugal, and died there of cancer on Dec. 8, 2021. Read more.
Health ministers from the G-7 group of nations adopted a pandemic pact during a two-day meeting in Berlin. The agreement aims to improve pandemic surveillance and identification systems globally and establish a mechanism for a swift, coordinated response. Read more.
For Devex, I hosted a 30-minute discussion on the status of the TRIPS waiver and the impact its proposal could have on the future of intellectual property discussions within the World Trade Organization. Watch here.
And read the coverage of the discussion here: Can a ‘watered-down’ TRIPS waiver still matter?
Rich countries are snapping up available Covid-19 treatments, leaving the rest of the world months away from gaining access. The wait in some middle-income countries could be even longer.
“We still have deaths every day, and coming into winter it will increase,” said Luis Villarroel Villalón, who leads a nonprofit in Chile that provides legal services. His is among the dozens of middle-income countries looking at a wait, which could stretch well into 2023, for the new treatments, particularly Pfizer’s oral antiviral, Paxlovid. “Lives could be saved through Paxlovid,” said Villalón. Read more.
Key G-7 meetings of development and health ministers kicked off this week in Berlin with the launch of an alliance for global food security — a G-7 and World Bank initiative — to coordinate global food security measures. Read more.
American experts on neglected tropical diseases are warning that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's suspension of testing for most parasitic infections, which has been ongoing now for more than seven months, is delaying diagnoses and treatment and affecting patient care. But there is still no timeline for resuming most of the tests. Read more.
Discussions began last week within the World Trade Organization over a proposal to temporarily waive patent protections on COVID-19 vaccines. Even as WTO officials press for a resolution ahead of a long-delayed ministerial conference in June, the halting reactions of members to the document signal that reaching consensus in a month — or at all — will not be easy. Read more.
World Trade Organization officials have circulated a draft proposal that would temporarily waive intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines, paving the way for members to start discussing the plan.
That will compel members, including the deal’s brokers, to signal whether they’ll support the divisive proposal. Read more.
The timeline for the development of the COVID-19 vaccine was unprecedented: just 326 days from the sequencing of the coronavirus until the first jabs received emergency use authorization. Now experts at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations believe they can slash that window by more than two-thirds.
Influential expert on neglected tropical diseases and senior WHO official. Born on March 26, 1963 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, she died from complications related to cancer on Feb. 10, 2022 in Geneva, Switzerland. Read more.
In March 2020, before the first COVID-19 case was even recorded in Uganda, President Yoweri Museveni went on national television to announce a country-wide closure of schools. Calling schools the “perfect grounds for new infections,” he said he was making the “move early to avoid the stampede.”
Most of the country’s classrooms would remain closed for 22 months, one of the longest COVID-related shutdowns in the world.
They finally reopened in January, and educators are still assessing the fallout. The damage to State House—Uganda’s executive branch—meanwhile, is already clear. With his willingness to keep schools shuttered even as he lifted other restrictions, Museveni undermined his commitment to education as a top priority of his political agenda.
Recent audits of grants from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Kenya and Mozambique have identified gaps in the procurement and supply chain processes in both countries, contributing to essential drugs and commodities going out of stock.
Dismayed by the results, civil society groups are demanding accountability from the Global Fund. Read more.