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Unbelievably crude. Calling WHO the "so-called World Health Organization" in typical Trumpian style. Full of false & fanciful accusations aimed at the domestic MAGA audience. No recognition of one of the greatest organizations in the world that led the eradication of smallpox, and made great strides A sad day for the US and the world. Kul   

Here’s a remarkable story about Moderna of covid vaccine fame. Being in a company that’s growing very fast is in some ways harder than being inside an old stodgy dinosaur. Biotech as an investment has been very difficult to make a profit with. There is such a thing as real technical genius, and within all American pharmaceutical/biological companies there is also real marketing super selling. I’m amazed by Americans behavior around covid. The mRNA vaccines are one of the great innovations in vaccine development. The use of mass media to politicize the vaccine is right out of Soviet active measures trade craft. I’d say the media campaign was at least as powerful as the vaccine innovation. Putting a number on how many Americans died because of a nasty political stunt to discredit a great innovation. Moderna at $6 billion sales isn’t a major pharma business. It will likely be bought by one of the big boys. About a century ago I was part of that industry and then it was considered a ...

Twitter post shared by Kul Gautam Sad to see the US rejection of the amendments to the International Health Regulations agreed by all WHO member states by consensus - with full participation of the previous US administration - based on Trumped-up allegations by RFK.

Report shared by Robert Cohen Here are some very sobering stats on vaccine hesitancy. With Trump's public health czar Robert Kennedy Jr -- a vaccine sceptic himself and a conspiracy theorist -- immunization campaigns will face even greater challenges. Robert

Excerpts: "On June 1, in the nail-biting final hours of the annual World Health Assembly meeting in Geneva, states agreed to a robust package of amendments to the World Health Organization’s 2005 International Health Regulations ." ".... the new regulations enhance transparency and the timeliness of information about important public health events. They also provide for a new “pandemic emergency” alert, aiming to prepare countries for an imminent threat before it’s too late to contain. Crucially, they also oblige countries to collaborate so that medicines, diagnostics and vaccines have a better chance of reaching people who need them the most, wherever they may be." Click here for  the article in The Conversation Click here for article in Think Global Health Click here for WHO announcement

Editor's Note : Readers may have seen two articles we posted yesterday concerning the World Health Assembly and the seeming deadlock over the draft agreement on preparations for future pandemics.  If you missed them, click here and here.    I asked John Gilmartin to give us his views on the issues, and particularly the issue between developed countries and less developed over vaccine sharing.   Here is John's reply.  If you have thoughts to share, please comment. Hi Tom, Honestly, I don’t follow the many many WHO meetings that touch on vaccine supply and related issues. I’m not a diplomat. I’m now an old out of touch 'supply guy.’ My battles in the global vaccine supply arena were around concepts like CVI, the Children’s Vaccine Initiative, polio eradication, and local manufacture which became a somewhat important side issue during the Summit for Children. The founding of GAVI, which I think in hindsight was a brilliant idea, contributed to the succes...

"If there’s one thing the COVID-19 pandemic taught us, it’s that we weren’t ready for it. If there’s another hard lesson we learned, it’s that getting everyone to agree on how to respond to a pandemic was seemingly impossible. 

IHR Working Group Co-Chairs and WHO DG The Working Group on the International Health Regulations (IHR) , which aimed to clear the way for an agreement on global pandemic preparedness, faced a significant setback this week. 

Article shared by Tom McDermott

Article shared by Baquer Namazi

Article shared by Fouad Kronfol

Last year many of us thought that the zombies had gone - or at least we hoped so.   We should have known better.  Classic zombie movies should have taught us that you can never kill zombies. They just keep coming.  You can try to burn them, lob grenades at them, cut off their heads, but they always keep coming.   We even tried the 'kill the vampire' move - stake through the heart.  Nothing worked. Such were the COVID zombies - for three years we did all the right things to ward them off. Some of us became hermits, locked ourselves up in our homes, limited our shopping, avoided gatherings and visitors.  We dutifully took the required shots and boosters and wore our masks.  Even then, despite all our precautions, the COVID zombies caught up with many of us. Most of us survived with fairly mild symptoms.  Then we went around telling others, "Oh, it wasn't so bad." Doing so, we ignored all evidence to the contrary - the fact that some did no...

The Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet has today decided to award the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enable the development of effective mRNA vaccines against Covid-19 The physiology or medicine prize for Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman recognized work that led to the development of vaccines that were administered to billions around the world. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/02/health/nobel-prize-medicine.html?smid=em-share

 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/06/technology/unesco-report-remote-learning-inequity.html?smid=nytcore-android-share Click here to read or download the summary of the report (23 pages) A new report by UNESCO is likely to rekindle debates over whether governments took the right approach during the COVID-19 pandemic in closing schools and attempting to fill the gaps in schooling by turning to remote digital learning.   A NY Times article today about the report  -  Dependence on Tech Caused ‘Staggering’ Education Inequality  - notes that :  * that remote learning during the pandemic has widened educational inequities globally. Students from poorer households and rural areas suffered the most due to lack of internet access and technology. * 147 million students worldwide missed more than half of their in-person instruction over the past two years. * In parts of South Asia and Latin America, around 80% or more of students from poorer households had no int...

As UN Pandemic Talks Resume, Tedros Expresses ‘Concern’ About Slow Pace of Accord Negotiations After a two-week hiatus in negotiations, United Nations (UN) member states this week received a third draft of the Political Declaration being developed for the High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response on 20 September. The declaration was supposed to have been finalised by early August and put under silence procedure but member states failed to agree on a number of clauses and negotiations were interrupted by the northern hemisphere summer holidays. Last week, bilateral meetings resumed and sources told Health Policy Watch that member states finally received an amended draft this week. Slow pandemic accord talks Meanwhile, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus expressed concern this week about the slow pace of negotiations on the pandemic accord, warning that it may not be completed by the May 2024 deadline. “I’m concerned ...

The proposed pandemic accord is an international agreement that would set out the rules for how countries should prevent, prepare for, and respond to pandemics. The accord is being negotiated by the World Health Organization (WHO) and its member states. There is some concern that corporations are trying to gain control over the negotiations for the pandemic accord. Some organizations have accused corporations of lobbying for provisions that would benefit their interests, such as provisions that would protect intellectual property rights for pharmaceutical companies or that would make it easier for corporations to profit from pandemics. The WHO has denied that corporations are trying to control the negotiations, but it has acknowledged that corporations have been involved in the process. The WHO has said that it is important to have the input of all stakeholders, including corporations, in order to develop a successful pandemic accord. Some organizations that have criticized the propos...

HE Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and The Rt Hon. Helen Clark Open letter to leaders and decision-makers responsible for the Political Declaration to be agreed for the 20 September UNGA High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response Expressing grave concern the opportunity is being wasted 9 July 2023 We write, with bluntness and urgency, as we are gravely concerned that the opportunity presented by the High-Level Meeting and the expected Political Declaration on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response is being squandered. The current draft of the political declaration, to be the focus of consultations on July 10 and 11, does not express the commitments required of Heads of State and Government to transform the international system of pandemic preparedness and response. Instead, it reads as a health resolution. We have been clear and consistent in our recommendations regarding governance, equitable access to countermeasures, preparedness and surge finance, the ne...

India a prime example of successfully growing domestic pharma industry: UNICEF official India is a prime example of successfully growing a domestic pharmaceutical industry capable of meeting global supply needs, a top UNICEF official said. India can share its expertise and learnings from the model it used to foster the pharmaceutical industry with countries and regions trying to build capacities including how to incentivise the private sector, ensure regulatory and quality assurance systems in place and develop a globally competitive industry, Tara L Prasad, Senior Manager, Centre for Health Emergency Strategy and Partnerships at UNICEF, said. She is here to attend the third G20 Health Working Group meeting that is being held from June 4 to 6. ''Further, India can share lessons on how to create an enabling environment, including investments in human and physical capital, as well as its learnings in moving beyond generic industry to expanding research and development innovato...

  Dr. David Nabarro has dedicated his life to global health.  After a long career that’s taken him from the horrors of war torn Iraq, to the devastating aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami, he is still spurred to action by the tremendous inequalities in global access to medical care. “The thing that keeps me awake most at night is the rampant inequities in our world…We see an awful lot of needless suffering.”  A passionate advocate for sustainable development, David Nabarro has seen in his own family how medicine can transform lives. In this episode, he reflects on his lifelong struggle against inequality, the lessons of misfortune, and why communication is always at the heart of healing.  “We're not doing this work to make ourselves feel better … [but] because we are totally convinced that it's not necessary in today's wealthy world … for so many people to be experiencing hardship [and] have their lives and their livelihoods imperiled.”