Global Health

By: Malcolm Quigley Within the field of strategic partnerships, we come across multiple different ways in which we can deliver on our goals. Sometimes we can see a clear path forward, and other times the path is a lot more complex. It’s a bit like how we navigate city streets. In some cities, we can follow a numbered and alphabetized system, but streets in other cities are name-based. Indeed, some cities use both systems. On top of that, there are multiple ways to travel through the cities that are also based on the naming conventions. It can be very confusing and seem unstructured for anyone who is fully accustomed to one system or the other. It is certainly the case in strategic partnerships that we sometimes have a straightforward route to the end goal, but in others, the jour...

GHealth News - The rapidly spreading monkeypox outbreak represents a global health emergency, the World Health Organization's highest level of alert, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Saturday. The WHO label - a "public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC)" - is designed to trigger a coordinated international response and could unlock funding to collaborate on sharing vaccines and treatments. Members of an expert committee that met on Thursday to discuss the potential recommendation were split on the decision, with nine members against and six in favour of the declaration, prompting Tedros himself to break the deadlock, he told reporters. "Although I am declaring a public health emergency of international concern, for the moment this is an outbre...

 GHealth News - French drugmaker Sanofi will make 30 of its treatments, including insulin, available on a not-for-profit basis in 40 lower-income countries in the first step of its plan to increase access to its medicines worldwide. The treatments will be provided under the new Impact brand, part of Sanofi's global health unit launched last year, which sits outside the commercial business. The plan also includes the $25 million Impact fund, which will go towards supporting local start-up healthcare businesses and providing training on using the medicines, Sanofi said. "There's a lot of noise at the moment from different companies jumping into this space... but investing in entrepreneurship, in the ecosystem, is a new thing," said Jon Fairest, who heads the global health unit. T...

The World Health Summit (WHS) and the World Health Organization (WHO) join forces to organize the 2022 edition of one of the world's leading international, inclusive and inter-sectoral global health conference to bring global health actors closer to setting agenda for a healthier future. Registration for on-site participation is now open The Summit will take place on 16-18 October 2022 in Berlin, Germany. Participants will focus on “Making the Choice for Health” by reflecting on pressing topics such as Investment for Health and Well-Being, Climate Change and Planetary Health, Architecture for Pandemic Preparedness, Digital Transformation for Health, Food Systems and Health, Health Systems Resilience and Equity, and Global Health for Peace. See more information about the progr...

GHealth News - The World Health Organization released its largest review of world mental health since the turn of the century. The detailed work provides a blueprint for governments, academics, health professionals, civil society and others with an ambition to support the world in transforming mental health. In 2019, nearly a billion people – including 14% of the world’s adolescents – were living with a mental disorder. Suicide accounted for more than 1 in 100 deaths and 58% of suicides occurred before age 50. Mental disorders are the leading cause of disability, causing 1 in 6 years lived with disability. People with severe mental health conditions die on average 10 to 20 years earlier than the general population, mostly due to preventable physical diseases. Childhood sexual abuse and ...

GHealth News - The World Health Organization has said it will rename monkeypox to avoid discrimination and stigmatisation as the virus continues to spread among people in an unprecedented global outbreak of the disease. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director general, said the organisation was “working with partners and experts from around the world on changing the name of the monkeypox virus, its clades and the disease it causes”. The move comes after scientists called for an “urgent” change to the name which they described as “inaccurate”, “discriminatory” and “stigmatising” in a report released last week. An announcement on the new name would be made “as soon as possible”, said Tedros. Similar concerns were raised at the height of the coronavirus pandemic when new Cov...

GHealth News - Growing food shortages may represent the same health threat to the world as the COVID-19 pandemic, a leading global health figure has warned. Rising food and energy prices, in part sparked by the war in Ukraine, could kill millions both directly and indirectly, Peter Sands, the executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday. "Food shortages work in two ways. One is you have the tragedy of people actually starving to death. But second is you have the fact that often much larger numbers of people are poorly nourished, and that makes them more vulnerable to existing diseases," he said. He said efforts to improve pandemic preparedness should not make the "classic" mistake of concerning themselves on...

GHealth News - During a moving ceremony at the Seventy-fifth World Health Assembly in Geneva, awards were presented to a group of individuals from around the world for their outstanding contributions to public health. Opening the award ceremony, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, said: ”The 2022 public health prizes and awards celebrate people and institutions for successfully addressing a huge array of health challenges around the world. It is an honour for us to come together to acknowledge these true champions of health. I thank the foundations and institutions who so generally support these awards.” Many of the prizes awarded have been established by, or set up in memory of, an eminent public health professional. The call for nomi...

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organization (WHO) GHealth News - The WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has announced six awards to recognize outstanding contributions to advancing global health, demonstrated leadership and commitment to regional health issues. Dr Tedros himself decides on the awardees for the World Health Organization Director-General’s Global Health Leaders Awards. The ceremony for the awards, which were established in 2019, was part of the live-streamed high-level opening session of the 75th World Health Assembly.  “At a time when the world is facing an unprecedented convergence of inequity, conflict, food insecurity, the climate crisis and a pandemic, this award recognizes those who have made an outst...

Brazilian 99-year-old former WWII combatant Ermando Armelino Piveta gestures as he leaves the Armed Forces Hospital after being treated for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and discharged, in Brasilia, Brazil. REUTERS GHealth News - Despite the the COVID-19 pandemic, the World Health Organization’s 2020-2021 Results Report tracks WHO’s significant achievements across the global health spectrum. Released ahead of the World Health Assembly next week, the report details such accomplishments as the delivery of more than 1.4 billion vaccine doses via the COVAX facility, the recommendation for broad use of the world’s first malaria vaccine and WHO’s response to some 87 health emergencies, including COVID-19. During 2020-2021, WHO led the largest-ever global response to a health crisis, w...