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Human African trypanosomiasis, also known as sleeping sickness, is a lifethreatening parasitic infection transmitted by the tsetse fly in sub-Saharan Africa. Although it caused devastating epidemics during the 20th century, its incidence has now fallen to historically low levels1 thanks to sustained and coordinated efforts over the past two decades.

[...] Several tools are available for the screening and diagnosis of gambiense trypanosomiasis, but tools for rhodesiense trypanosomiasis are either missing or, if they exist, are losing ground in the evolving context of health services in rural Africa.

Despite landmark antibody approval, research into potentially serious brain swelling and bleeding still lags.

A sea change is underway in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, where for the first time a drug that targets the disease’s pathology and clearly slows cognitive decline has hit the U.S. market. A related therapy will likely be approved in the coming months. As many neurologists, patients, and brain scientists celebrate, they’re also nervously eyeing complications from treatment: brain swelling and bleeding, which in clinical trials affected up to about one-third of patients and ranged from asymptomatic to fatal.

The side effect—amyloid-related imaging abnormalities, or ARIA—remains mysterious. “We don’t really understand what it is, what causes it, and what we can do about it,” says neurologist R. Scott Turner, director of the Memory Disorders Program at Georgetown University.

Anand Anandkumar’s description of developing and launching a novel antibiotic resonates with the pain of lived experience. “It’s like climbing a mountain and then going over a cliff,” says the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Bugworks Research Inc, a biotech company based in Bangalore, India.

The mountain that Bugworks is climbing is biotechnological (the company has a broad-spectrum antibiotic known as BWC0977 undergoing a Phase I trial in Australia), but the cliff the company will be going over – assuming the drug gets through the trial phases and receives regulatory approval – is, essentially, commercial.

Damiano de Felice, director of development at the Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator (CARB-X), a global nonprofit partnership focused on supporting early-stage antibacterial research and development (R&D), explains: “The more antibiotics are used, the more quickly microorganisms develop resistance to them. The public health imperative of antibiotic stewardship necessarily constrains demand.”

To achieve universal health coverage, people need public healthcare systems providing fair access to decent health care. This should be an entitlement for all, regardless of means, requiring adequate, appropriate and sustainable financing over the long term.

Appropriate arrangements can help ensure a financially sustainable, effective and equitable healthcare system. However, insurance-based systems – both private and social – not only incur unnecessary costs, but also undermine ensuring health for all.

Private health insurance
Voluntary private health insurance (PHI) is not an acceptable option for both equity and efficiency reasons. Those with lower health risks are less likely to buy insurance. Paying the same rate will be seen as benefiting those deemed greater risks, especially the less healthy, often also those less well off.

To achieve universal health coverage, all people need access to public healthcare. This should be an entitlement for all, regardless of means, requiring adequate long term sustainable financing.

Treatment Action Group, Partners in Health and Medécins Sans Frontières wrote an open letter to Johnson & Johnson seeking clarification on its deal with Global Drug Facility to supply generic versions of TB drug bedaquiline and also reiterated its demand for a public announcement of non-enforcement of secondary patents on bedaquiline in all low-, lower-middle, https://upper-middle, and high-TB- or MDR-TB-burden countries. 

While July saw a crush of global pandemic-related meetings – some joint and some clashing – to accommodate tight schedules and northern summer holidays, achieving a pandemic-proof world is still a long way off. 

The two pandemic negotiations underway at the World Health Organization (WHO) have held individual and joint meetings over the past few weeks, with talks dominated by equity, early warnings for pandemics and financing.

The Working Group on amendments to the IHR (WGIHR) is strengthening the International Health Regulations (IHR), the only legally binding global rules governing health emergencies. 

Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) is developing a pandemic accord to address other gaps that emerged during COVID-19 – particularly how to ensure equitable access to vaccines and medicines.

While July saw a crush of global pandemic-related meetings – some joint and some clashing – to accommodate tight schedules and northern summer holidays, achieving a pandemic-proof world is still a long way off. 

The two pandemic negotiations underway at the World Health Organization (WHO) have held individual and joint meetings over the past few weeks, with talks dominated by equity, early warnings for pandemics and financing.

The Working Group on amendments to the IHR (WGIHR) is strengthening the International Health Regulations (IHR), the only legally binding global rules governing health emergencies. 

Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) is developing a pandemic accord to address other gaps that emerged during COVID-19 – particularly how to ensure equitable access to vaccines and medicines.

A new World Health Organization (WHO) report highlights that 5.6 billion people – 71% of the world’s population – are now protected with at least one best practice policy to help save lives from deadly tobacco – five times more than in 2007.

In the last 15 years since WHO’s MPOWER tobacco control measures were introduced globally, smoking rates have fallen. Without this decline there would be an estimated 300 million more smokers in the world today.

This WHO Report on the global tobacco epidemic, supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, is focused on protecting the public from second-hand smoke, highlighting that almost 40% of countries now have completely smoke-free indoor public places.

The report rates country progress in tobacco control and shows that two more countries, Mauritius and the Netherlands, have achieved best-practice level in all MPOWER measures, a feat that only Brazil and Türkiye had accomplished until now.

Notable progress has been made since May 2023 by the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body to draft and negotiate a WHO convention, agreement or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response (the INB). The Seventy-sixth World Health Assembly in May 2023 played an important role in maintaining the momentum towards our objective to deliver a pandemic accord to the World Health Assembly (WHA) in May 2024. Shortly after, on 12-16 June 2023, the INB Bureau continued its work during the resumed session of the fifth meeting of the INB (INB5 resumed session). The INB considered the Bureau’s text and agreed on innovative ways of working, empowering interested Member States to facilitate informal discussions. We are grateful for the leadership of the WHO Member States that have volunteered to help to bridge the gaps on key issues. Their hard work during the intersessional period will pay off. Once again, our diversity will make us stronger.