Global Health

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is announcing a new center designed to advance the use of forecasting and outbreak analytics in public health decision making. Once established, the Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics will bring together next-generation public health data, expert disease modelers, public health emergency responders, and high-quality communications, to meet the needs of decision makers.  The new center will accelerate access to and use of data for public health decision-makers who need information to mitigate the effects of disease threats, such as social and economic disruption. The center will prioritize equity and accessibility, while serving as a hub for innovation and research on disease modeling. “This is an amazing...

By Daniel E. Slotnik and Noah Weiland As the Delta variant rages around the world, a heated debate has arisen over whether public health officials should recommend booster shots. On one side are global health officials who contend that available vaccines would be better used to inoculate high-risk people in poor nations where few have gotten the shots. On the other are leaders and health officials in wealthier countries, who are setting aside doses for more vulnerable people who may need additional doses to protect them from the virus. Biden administration officials have already begun developing a plan that would roll out third shots of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines as early as this fall, saying the logistics are too complicated to wait for scientific certainty that the e...

By: Madhukar Pai There is a lot that is wrong with how global health is designed, structured, taught, and practiced. If this was not clear before the pandemic, the ongoing Covid-19 vaccine inequity (vaccine apartheid) offers abundant proof that global health, as a field, does not walk the talk on buzzwords such as global solidarity or social inequities. Whether it is vaccines, grant funding or journal authorship, it is all about the power and privilege high-income countries (HIC) have and maintain, and what they may be willing to part with, as charity. The past two or three years have seen a flood of conferences, webinars, talks, op-eds, and articles on the need to decolonize global health (DGH). Similar calls are also being made to decolonize humanitarian aid. A numbe...

Following the recent G20 side event co-hosted by the Italian Government and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) focusing on the role of logistics in current and future health emergencies, WFP and the World Health Organization (WHO) are launching INITIATE2, a joint project to bring together emergency actors, research and academic institutions, and international and national partners to promote knowledge sharing and skills transfer for improved emergency response to health crises. INITIATE² will develop standardized, innovative solutions such as disease-specific field facilities and kits and test these solutions in real-life scenarios. The agencies will also train logistics and health responders on their installation and use, contributing to their capacity to respond in health c...

By: Charli Shield It is a search that has so far eluded scientists for 40 years: Finding a safe and effective vaccine to protect people from HIV.   Not a single HIV vaccine has made it beyond Phase III clinical testing in 37 years of research. In comparison to COVID-19, that timeline seems baffling. Over the last 18 months, more than 32 COVID vaccines have made it to Phase III clinical trials, eight have so far been approved and manufactured, and another 90 are in the Phase I and II pipeline.  "When there's the political will, there is funding and resources," said Hendrik Streeck, virologist and director of the German Center of HIV &...

Consumers should stop using certain brands of spray-on sunscreen products made by Johnson & Johnson. The company has issued a voluntary recall after finding low levels of benzene, a known cancer-causing agent, in some samples. Benzene is not an ingredient of sunscreen, and should not be present in these products. The levels detected were low and would not be expected to have an adverse effect on health, but the company says it is recalling the products anyway “out of an abundance of caution.” The sunscreen products that have been recalled are: NEUTROGENA® Beach Defense® aerosol sunscreen,NEUTROGENA® Cool Dry Sport aerosol sunscreen,NEUTROGENA® Invisible Daily™ defense aerosol sunscreen,NEUTROGENA® Ultra Sheer® aerosol sunscreen, andAVEENO® Pr...

New guidelines from WHO strongly recommend offering self-testing for hepatitis C virus (HCV) as an additional approach to HCV testing services. WHO releases the new guidelines – its first on HCV self-testing – during the International AIDS Society Conference 2021.  WHO set a goal to eliminate HCV as a public health problem by 2030 in its Global health sector strategy on viral hepatitis (2016–2021), with targets to diagnose 90% of those with HCV and to treat 80% of those diagnosed. However, as of 2019 only an estimated 21% of the 58 million people with chronic HCV infection globally were diagnosed. And, despite recent advances in highly effective and affordable direct-acting antiviral (DAA) treatment, only 9.4 million (62% of those diagnosed) were treated with DAAs between 2015...

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) and the Kofi Annan Foundation launched the Fellowship of Kofi Annan Global Health Leadership Programme which aims to support senior aspirational African public health leaders acquire advanced skills for transformational public health leadership in Africa. The programme is the first initiative under the Kofi Annan Global Health Leadership Program (KA-GHLP) that was launched on 25 May 2020 by the African Union Commission (AUC) and Africa CDC. The leadership programme was established in honour of the late Kofi Annan, a visionary and principled leader as epitomized by one of his brainchild achievements, the establishment of the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (The Global Fund) in 2001, which transformed the ap...

by Kate Whiting - World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum held an Issue Briefing to mark World Immunization Week.Experts from around the globe discussed how can we ensure vaccine equity, build trust in COVID-19 vaccines and strengthen health systems. Panellists: Aboubacar Kampo, Director of Health Programmes, UNICEF; Heidi Larson, Professor of Anthropology, Risk and Decision Science, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine; Garth Graham, Director and Global Head of Healthcare and Public Health at Google/YouTube; Julie Gerberding,Executive Vice President and Chief Patient Officer, Communications, Global Policy, and Population Health at MSD; Genya Dana,Head of Healthcare, World Economic Forum. Watch the full session below: https://www.yout...

On 21 May 2021 in Rome, Italy, as chair of the G20, and the European Commission will co-host the Global Health Summit. Details of the event were announced on World Health Day. The event is an opportunity for G20 and invited leaders, heads of international and regional organizations, and representatives of global health bodies, to share lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, and develop and endorse a ‘Rome Declaration’ of principles that in turn can be a powerful guide for further multilateral cooperation and joint action to prevent future global health crises, and for a joint commitment to build a healthier, safer, fairer and more sustainable world. The Summit will build on the Coronavirus Global Response, a pledging marathon that last year raised close ...