The European Parliament on Wednesday defeated a proposal to freeze cigarette excise taxes at a 60% rate of retail value – throwing a final decision on tobacco and nicotine policies into the court of the European Council of Ministers. But the politically-divided EU Council is unlikely to raises taxes anywhere near the bar set by […] Continue reading ->
A return on investment of 16:1 should be irresistible. So why does midwifery keep losing the budget fight, and what would make funders and finance ministers finally move? When a young mother in Mtendere, Lusaka, began bleeding heavily hours after delivering her baby, her life was in grave danger. Three midwives assessed her immediately, recognised […] Continue reading ->
What’s left to tackle in the PABS talks? As the clock ran out, and then was extended for another year, on negotiations over the Pandemic Agreement’s Annex on Pathogen Access and Benefit-Sharing (PABS), the diplomacy and the nitty-gritty of the issues faced were deeply linked This edition of the Governing Pandemics Snapshot of the Geneva […] Continue reading ->
Dutch, Spanish and Swiss medical experts applied slightly different criteria for discharging patients infected with Andes hantavirus during the recent outbreak on a cruise ship –  but none required a negative blood test, as this could remain positive “for months”. This emerged during a briefing convened by the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Information Network for […] Continue reading ->
Despite claims by the United States that it has allocated over $270 million to the Ebola Bundibugyo outbreak response, countries and groups dealing with the outbreak are in the dark about where the money is going. Washington’s directive to US health experts not to deal with World Health Organization (WHO) officials is also hampering their […] Continue reading ->