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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.

In the politically charged discussions that current global health negotiations have become, diplomats have to walk a tightrope between delivering on political goals and bringing in concrete reforms to beef up preparedness, prevention and respond to health emergencies. The relative low profile of the discussions surrounding the amendments to the IHR (2005) is in contrast to the optics generated by the negotiations for a Pandemic Accord. This could be partly by design, and partly by the very nature of these discussions that are technical but undoubtedly also political. During the sidelines of the WG-IHR4, Geneva Health Files, spoke with Abdullah Asiri and Ashley Bloomfield, Co-Chairs of the WG-IHR talk about how they see these negotiations progressing. Countries have often described this track fo global helathnegotiations as being efficient and streamlined.

The thorny and unresolved issues of how to incorporate health equity measures and supportive finance for low and middle income countries into revisions of the WHO International Health Regulations (IHR), are set to be two key items on the agenda of an IHR negotiating body when talks resume again in early October. 

This was one of the key messages at the close of the fourth meeting of the WHO Working Group on Amendments to the International Health Regulations, which concluded today after a week of discussions. 

WHO member states came together in recent days in the first substantive joint session that brought together the bureaux of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body and the Working Group of amendments to the International Health Regulations.

With a mere ten months away from the May 2024 deadline, where both these processes are expected to conclude and culminate in the adoption of new amendments to the IHR and a potentially new pandemic instrument, countries this week grappled with the basics such as what would legally constitute a pandemic, how it would be declared, what kind of actions would it trigger and most importantly, how would these elements sit across the two different, overlapping legal mechanisms. There was also consideration of a few key topics that have featured in both these tracks of negotiations.

… Overlooking the inclusion of Africa CDC, which is the sole continental public health institution, was an unfortunate oversight. As a result, Africa’s health security gaps remain inadequately addressed, leading to the absence of multi-country/regional proposals from the continent. Africa CDC would like to recall that in February 2023, it reiterated its stance as an observer at the Pandemic Fund’s Board, emphasizing the significance of inclusive representation in the Fund’s governance structures, technical teams, and Secretariat to inform its crucial work. Africa CDC would also like to echo the call from African Heads of State and Government for a better representation of Africa in all multilateral constituencies. Africa CDC further urges for equitable representation of African countries and regional organizations in the relevant structures to ensure fair and inclusive outcomes. Therefore, Africa CDC once again urges the Pandemic Fund to take decisive action for the admission of Africa CDC as an Implementing Entity to join the ones identified in 2022.