The latest Ebola outbreak in Kasai province in southern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is being hampered by lack of instructure, including roads and transport. Samples from the index case and five other suspected cases took eight days to get to the National Public Health Laboratory (INRB) in Kinshasa, only arriving on 3 September. The […] Continue reading ->
China saw a decline in overall levels of health-harmful particulate pollution (PM 2.5) in 2024 as compared to 2023 thanks to ardent mitigation efforts of leading pollution sources. But India remained a global air pollution hotspot, while wildfire activity led to above average PM 2.5 levels in Canada, Siberia and central Africa, according to the […] Continue reading ->
WHO has ended its declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) for Mpox, announced in August 2024, saying that cases in the most affected areas of Africa had leveled off or were declining. However, continued vigilance in testing – along with regular supplies of vaccines and drug treatments remains essential to ensure […] Continue reading ->
WHO’s 2025 Essential Medicines Lists (EML), published Friday, has included the active ingredients in popular weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy – semaglutide or other comparable GLP-1 receptor agonists – in a recommendation that recognizes the growing importance of the drugs in clinical treatment of diabetes worldwide. These drugs, as well as new PD-1/PD-L1 […] Continue reading ->
SRINAGAR, INDIA – When record-breaking rains, landslides and cloudbursts lashed northern India in late August — across Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh — highways turned into rivers, homes collapsed and death tolls mounted. But beneath the visible destruction lies a quieter emergency: public health systems buckling under the strain. In Kashmir, the Jhelum […] Continue reading ->
ISLAMABAD – Cancer cases in Pakistan are on the increase, but patients and health advocates are caught in a struggle for access to life-saving treatment amid concerns about the quality of generic drugs and the rising cost of medicine. Tahmeena Kausar Parveen, a 45-year-old resident of Islamabad, was shocked by the news that she needs […] Continue reading ->
Regulating pharmaceutical companies that manufacture essential health products during a public health emergency is a key flashpoint between developed and developing countries ahead of the final round of talks on the pandemic agreement. This is evident in some of the 17 submissions made to the Intergovernmental Negotiating Working Group (IGWG), which is coordinating the final […] Continue reading ->
Over a billion people across the world are living with mental health disorders, a slight but significant increase over the numbers from the last time the data was collected in 2000, with anxiety and depression being the most prevalent conditions. In low-income countries, fewer than 10% of affected individuals receive care, compared to over 50% […] Continue reading ->
A new White House “pocket rescission package” threatens to throw the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the Americas branch of the World Health Organization, into a financial crisis – if it is not stopped by the US Congress before the end of September. The White House order, announced on the eve of the long US […] Continue reading ->
Ghana has seen an “exponential” increase in mpox cases over the past week, while there have been smaller increases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Guinea, Burundi, and Kenya, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). Ghana now has 313 confirmed cases, an 87% increase over the previous […] Continue reading ->
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