Credit: United Nations

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Apr 20 2022 (IPS) – As a global pandemic, COVID-19 and its continued impacts are unprecedented. Yet many of the challenges that emerged in public health responses to COVID-19 not only had precedence, but were predictable.

As the international community observes (April 24-30), it is a critical moment to reflect on what lessons have, and have not, been learned, and how we can accelerate progress towards vaccine equity.

The theme of the 2022 World Immunization Week is “Long Life for All”, a framing which underscores the benefits for every individual of access to and uptake of vaccinations. However, this obscu…

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, standing with Yohei Sasakawa, WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, at the 75th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland in May 2022. Sasakawa was honored at the Global Health Leaders Awards.

Nairobi, Jun 7 2022 (IPS) – When Yohei Sasakawa visited a remote village in Cameroon, he found 23 people living t…

SYDNEY and KUALA LUMPUR, Sep 6 2022 (IPS) – As rich countries raise interest rates in double-edged efforts to address inflation, developing countries are struggling to cope with slowdowns, inflation, higher interest rates and other costs, plus growing debt distress.

Rich countries’ interest rate hikes have triggered capital outflows, currency depreciations and higher debt servicing costs. Developing country woes have been worsened by commodity price volatility, trade disruptions and less foreign exchange earnings.

Anis Chowdhury

Rising debt risks
were already in, or at high risk of debt distress, even before the Ukraine crisis. Debt service burdens i…

A laboratory technician works at a health and science centre in Bangkok, Thailand. It is a WHO Collaborating Centre for research and training on viral zoonoses. Credit: WHO/P. Phutpheng

 
Universal Health Coverage Day on 12 December is the annual rallying point for the growing movement for health for all. It marks the anniversary of the United Nations’ historic and unanimous endorsement of universal health coverage in 2012.

WASHINGTON DC/ CHAPEL HILL, NORTH CAROLINA/ GENEVA, Dec 19 2022 (IPS) – Health services don’t deliver themselves. It is the nurse who triages in the emergency department, the midwife who delivers babies and cares for mother…

The cumulative needs of injured patients from the war have created a medical crisis. Credit: James Jeffrey/IPS

ADDIS ABABA, Mar 30 2023 (IPS) – There are about globally who cannot access surgery. In Ethiopia, for every 5,000 needed surgeries per 100,000 people, the country’s health system Yet, this is Africa’s second largest population, with over 120 million people.

The statistics are worrying. This is further exacerbated by a recently ended two-year war in the northern part of the country that devastated among others, the health sector. There is however an opportunity to build back better as the government institutes post-war reconstruction. This is possible th…

Salvadoran fisherman Nicolás Ayala, 63, walks to his boat at the San Luis La Herradura pier, on the Pacific coast of El Salvador, to begin a 24-hour fishing stint offshore. He said that due to the lack of a breakwater at the mouth, where the sea meets the estuary, boa…

“If people do not change the way antibiotics are used now, these new antibiotics will suffer the same fate as the current ones and become ineffective” . Credit: Adil Siddiqi/IPS

MADRID, Apr 11 2023 (IPS) – Research after research, world s scientists renew their loud alerts agai…

Credit: United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation

BANGKOK / BEIJING, Sep 12 2022 (IPS) – The world today faces a future that is in peril. Our challenges have become more complex and interconnected, as we see the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, an uneven economic recovery, a climate emergency, growing inequalities, and an increase in conflicts globally. This year also marks a grim milestone, with .

These events accompany increasing division in the community of nations which threatens to push the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) further out of reach for the Global South.

Adding to these crises, rising food and e…

Medical equipment supplied by the World Food Programme (WFP) arrives in Beijing.
Meanwhile, as COVID-19 infections surged in China, coronavirus experts gathered at the UN health agency in Geneva on January 3, to discuss next steps. Photo courtesy of Yingshi Zhang

BRUSSELS, Jan 4 2023 (IPS) – Three years after the coronavirus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan, the Chinese government began in December to abruptly scrap its harsh containment policy known as zero-Covid.

This zero-Covid policy relied on strict lockdowns, use of a Covid tracking app, domestic travel restrictions, and quarantining those who test positive along with their close contacts. But the …

The newly-signed Sierre Leone law outlawing child marriage also says that those who entered into marriage as children before the new legislation came into effect can petition for annulment. Credit: Joyce Chimbi/IPS

FREETOWN & NAIROBI, Jul 11 2024 (IPS) – “A person shall not contract marriage with a child,” Sierra Leone…