Category Archives: Global health

UN warns against alarmism as world’s population reaches 8bn milestone

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UNFPA head urges countries to focus on helping women, children and marginalised people most vulnerable to demographic change

The world must not engage in “population alarmism” as the number of people living on Earth nears 8 billion, a senior UN official has said.

The global population is projected to reach that milestone on 15 November, with some commentators expressing worries about the impact of the growing number on a world already struggling with huge inequality, the climate crisis, and conflict-fuelled displacement and migration.

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Dismay as key cholera vaccine is discontinued

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Exclusive: halt to production of Shanchol vaccine alarms WHO amid ‘unprecedented’ global outbreaks

The manufacturer of one of only two cholera vaccines for use in humanitarian emergencies is to halt production at the end of this year, just as the world faces an “unprecedented” series of deadly outbreaks, the Guardian has learned.

Shantha Biotechnics, a wholly owned Indian subsidiary of the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi, will stop production of its Shanchol vaccine within months and cease supply by the end of 2023, causing alarm among health officials.

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Health workers among dead in Ugandan Ebola outbreak

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MSF calls situation ‘very serious’ as east African country grapples with outbreak of Sudan strain of virus, for which no vaccine exists

It seems like a normal day in Mubende, central Uganda. Shops remain open, children are at school and public gatherings are allowed, provided people remain socially distant.

The ambulances that whisk past every few hours and the health workers who wash themselves meticulously before they return home are the only indications that it is not business as usual in the densely populated mining district, which is struggling to contain an outbreak of Ebola.

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UK under pressure to increase aid to Global Fund after US pledge

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Initiative to fight malaria, TB and Aids has asked for 30% increase after Covid crisis, but UK yet to announce pledge

Britain’s new government is facing the first test of its commitment to the global south as it decides whether to follow Joe Biden’s lead and pledge an extra £1.8bn to the Global Fund, the highly successful 20-year-old initiative that fights malaria, tuberculosis and Aids.

A replenishment event to cover funding for the next three years is taking place in New York, and Liz Truss’s administration has been delaying an announcement, partly owing to the death of the Queen.

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Malaria vaccine a step closer as experts urge Truss not to ‘turn off the tap’ on funding

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Chance to eradicate diseases such as malaria could be lost and UK innovation squandered if global health investment is cut, jab co-creator tells PM

The co-inventor of a groundbreaking vaccine that could eradicate malaria has implored Liz Truss not to squander cutting-edge UK innovation by “turning off the taps” on global health funding.

Speaking as successful results from the latest trials of the R21 vaccine were revealed, Prof Adrian Hill, director of Oxford University’s Jenner Institute, said it would be tragic if Britain cut funding just as scientists were poised to make “a real impact” against malaria.

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Togo achieves ‘major feat’ of eradicating four neglected tropical diseases

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WHO hails west African country as first in world to stamp out Guinea worm, lymphatic filariasis, sleeping sickness and trachoma

Togo has been praised by the World Health Organization for becoming the first country in the world to eliminate four neglected tropical diseases.

The WHO presented the west African country with an outstanding achievement award this week for eliminating Guinea worm, lymphatic filariasis, sleeping sickness and trachoma in just 11 years.

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India’s HIV patients say shortages leaving hundreds of thousands without drugs

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Campaigners say many people have had to stop or switch antiretroviral medication regimes – but the government denies supply crisis

Hundreds of thousands of people living with HIV in India are struggling to access treatment because of a shortage of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs, according to campaigners.

Up to 500,000 people have not been able to get hold of free ARVs from government health centres and hospitals over the past five months, they say, as the country experiences stock shortages of key drugs.

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Leading figures urge drugs firm to lower price of ‘game-changing’ HIV prevention drug

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Signatories including Olly Alexander, Stephen Fry and Joseph Stiglitz issue a letter asking ViiV to make cabotegravir affordable to low- and middle-income countries

Nobel laureates, business leaders, former premiers and celebrities have urged a UK pharmaceutical company to lower the price of its groundbreaking HIV prevention drug and ensure it is not kept “out of reach” of the world’s poor.

In a letter signed by dozens of high-profile figures, including Sir Richard Branson, the singer Olly Alexander, the economist Joseph Stiglitz and Helen Clark, the former prime minister of New Zealand, the pharmaceutical company ViiV Healthcare is praised for having developed the first of a new kind of HIV prevention drug.

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‘I saw an oncologist cry’: Tigray cancer patients sent home to die for lack of drugs

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Doctors call for international help as Ethiopia civil war leaves terminally ill being treated with paracetamol in Mekelle hospital

Doctors caring for cancer patients at the main hospital in Tigray say they have only two chemotherapy drugs left in date and are treating terminally ill people with expired medication and paracetamol. Eighteen months of war have left the sickest in society suffering agonising deaths, they say.

For the first time in 11 months, doctors at the Ayder referral hospital in Mekelle took receipt of an oral chemotherapy drug earlier this month as part of an airlift by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Until then, they had had only one, Doxorubicin, still in date.

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Médecins Sans Frontières suspends operations in parts of Cameroon over detained staff

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Health charity in an ‘untenable position’ in anglophone parts of the country as it is accused of taking sides in internal strife

Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has suspended its work in Cameroon’s south-west region and demanded the release of four staff members who have been detained for months, accused of helping secessionists.

Two MSF staff were detained at a checkpoint in December when they were transferring a patient with gunshot wounds. Another two were held by Cameroonian gendarmerie in January.

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UK Foreign Office rushed £4.2bn of aid cuts, official audit finds

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Support slashed despite warnings about impact, with offices told not to discuss plans with local partners, says National Audit Office report

The British government forced through £4.2bn in aid cuts so quickly it had little time to plan the impact they would have, or consult partners, according to an official audit.

The National Audit Office (NAO) said bilateral spending – aid given directly to another government – faced some of the harshest cuts by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) – 53% compared with less than a third of the overall aid budget – because of political and legal commitments to multilateral spending.

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‘Africa must be self-sufficient’: John Nkengasong on learning the deadly lessons of pandemics

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The outgoing director of Africa Centres for Disease Control has seen Ebola, Aids and now Covid – and warns complacency is dangerous

The past five years have been “like going from one fire to the next, with barely any time to catch your breath”, says John Nkengasong, the outgoing head of the body charged with responding to health emergencies in Africa.

A relentless term as the first director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) saw Nkengasong manage the response to Ebola and Lassa fever outbreaks. But nothing compared to the formidable test brought by Covid-19.

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Millions of children to be vaccinated for polio in Africa after Malawi detects case

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First case of wild polio detected in Malawi for 30 years prompts emergency rollout of vaccinations in five African countries

More than 23 million young children across southern Africa will be offered vaccinations against wild polio after an outbreak of the virus was detected in Malawi for the first time since 1992.

Children under five in Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital, began to be immunised on Sunday as part of a mass drive against the disease.

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Global powers inch closer to agreement to waive Covid vaccine patents

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The move would allow for cheaper generic versions to be manufactured and distributed among developing nations faster

Global powers have inched closer to an agreement to waive patents for Covid-19 vaccines, a move that would allow for cheaper generic versions to be manufactured and distributed among developing nations faster.

A leaked document, seen by the Guardian, reveals details of a compromise struck between the United States, the European Union, India and South Africa that would end a deadlock over an intellectual property waiver, 18 months after the proposal was first taken to the World Trade Organization.

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Harry and Meghan add voices to fierce critique of west’s Covid vaccine policies

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Pair join Gordon Brown and 126 others in attack on ‘self-defeating nationalism, pharmaceutical monopolies and inequality’

Prince Harry and Meghan, the actor Charlize Theron and the former British prime minister Gordon Brown are among 130 signatories to a letter lambasting wealthy countries’ approach to the Covid-19 pandemic, labelling it “immoral, entirely self-defeating and also an ethical, economic and epidemiological failure”.

In a strongly worded open letter published on Friday, the signatories warned “the pandemic is not over”, and said the failure to vaccinate the world was down to “self-defeating nationalism, pharmaceutical monopolies and inequality”.

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Patients dying as conflict prevents supplies reaching Tigray hospitals

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Medics unable to keep babies alive, says doctor, as Ethiopia’s civil war creates desperate shortages of drugs, oxygen, fuel and food

People in Tigray are dying due to a lack of oxygen and medicines, a doctor at the region’s largest hospital has said, as medics struggle to care for the sick amid frequent electricity blackouts and fuel shortages.

As the 16-month conflict between Tigrayan forces and Ethiopian government forces drags on, the isolated northern region of 5.5 million people continues to suffer under what the UN has called a de facto blockade.

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Increase funding or abandon hope of ending malaria, TB and Aids, UK warned

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Global Fund urges UK and other donors to pledge billions to get efforts to end diseases by 2030 ‘back on track’ after catastrophic impact of Covid

Britain is being urged to pledge billions of dollars to get the fight against malaria, tuberculosis and Aids “back on track” after efforts were ravaged by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The UK has historically been one of the main donors to the Global Fund, an international financing organisation aimed at ending the three deadly epidemics by 2030. Now it is warning that, unless donors make an unprecedented total funding pledge of $18bn (£13.25bn) this year, that goal will be missed.

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Dr Paul Farmer, healthcare advocate for some of world’s poorest, dies aged 62

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Farmer defied skeptics to create healthcare systems for the most vulnerable in places like Haiti, Rwanda and Peru.

Dr Paul Farmer, a physician, humanitarian and author renowned for providing healthcare to millions of impoverished people worldwide and who co-founded the global non-profit Partners in Health, has died. He was 62.

The Boston-based organization confirmed Farmer’s death on Monday, calling it “devastating” and noting he unexpectedly died in his sleep from an acute cardiac event while in Rwanda, where he had been teaching.

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My dying grandmother’s pain inspired me to challenge Zimbabwe’s pharmacy system | Dudzai Mureyi

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Finding the right medicine at the right price was once a lottery – now the crowdsourcing service I set up is bringing down the cost of illness

In July 2015, as my 82-year-old grandmother, Sophie Mafuku, lay dying of a terminal illness in Zimbabwe, I spent a day speaking to fellow pharmacists as I tried to fill her morphine prescription. If it takes 24 hours for the grandmother of a well-connected medical professional to access scarce drugs, I thought, how long is it taking people with no connections? It set me off on a journey.

In Zimbabwe, systemic shortages are common. Sometimes, only a handful of pharmacies have particular drugs in stock. The shortages are caused by well-documented economic challenges, which affect Zimbabwe’s capacity to manufacture or import medicines.

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‘Babies here are born sick’: are Bolivia’s gold mines poisoning its indigenous people?

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The government has been criticised for apparent inaction as evidence mounts that mercury contamination is causing illness in fishing communities

Outside a small brick house shared by four families, Daniela Prada, who is heavily pregnant, gathers guava leaves to make a tea for her two-year-old son.

“My baby gets sick a lot,” she says, boiling a pot of water in her outdoor kitchen. “He always has diarrhoea and last night he had a fever. Most of the time I give him natural medicine.”

In an identical house nearby, town leader Oscar Lurici says fevers are a part of life in Eyiyo Quibo village on the Beni River in northern Bolivia. People of all ages suffer from debilitating head and body aches, bouts of vomiting and diarrhoea, memory loss and tiredness. Some children show signs of cognitive development delays.

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