L’Europe à l’été 2024

Nous sommes très heureux d'accueillir la Division d'épidémiologie clinique de l'Hôpital universitaire de Bâle comme nouvelle organisation membre de notre réseau et nous nous réjouissons d'une bonne collaboration. - L'épidémiologie clinique est un département de l'Hôpital universitaire de Bâle et de l'Université de Bâle. Une partie de la recherche se fait en partenariat avec des organisations dans des pays d'Afrique. L'accent est mis sur le VIH/sida, la tuberculose, la santé mentale et les maladies cardiovasculaires. En principe, le département ne mène en Afrique que des projets de recherche qui présentent également un avantage direct potentiel pour les institutions et/ou les personnes qui y participent.

• Medicus Mundi Suisse
• Département d'épidémiologie clinique de l'Hôpital universitaire de Bâle
• Projets dans le domaine de la santé

"Seit Juni 2024 ist Anja Ebnöther neue Geschäftsleiterin der CBM Schweiz. Sie übernimmt die Leitung vom bisherigen Geschäftsleiter ad interim Mark Schmid. Ihre beruflich ersten internationalen Schritte tätigte die studierte Juristin beim Eidgenössischen Departement für Verteidigung, Bevölkerungsschutz und Sport im Bereich der internationalen Sicherheitspolitik. (...) Zu ihrer Motivation, für die CBM zu arbeiten, sagt Anja Ebnöther: «Die Vision der CBM, dass Menschen mit Behinderungen ihre Rechte als Mitglieder der Gesellschaft leben und ihr volles Potenzial ausschöpfen können, teile ich voll und ganz. Ebenso unsere Überzeugung, gemeinsam mit betroffenen Menschen die Abwärtsspirale von Armut und Behinderung zu durchbrechen. Das alles spornt mich an, die Extrameile zu gehen.»

• Christoffel Blindenmission Schweiz

"L’Office fédéral de la santé publique et le Secrétariat d’État aux migrations ont publié une lettre de protection visant à aider les familles qui voyagent à l’étranger à se prémunir contre la pression sociale subie dans leur pays d’origine si elles sont incitées à faire exciser leurs filles. La lettre de protection publiée par la Confédération peut être utile dans de nombreux cas, par exemple lorsque les parents sont opposés aux E/MGF mais que la famille restée dans le pays d’origine en préconise la pratique et exerce une pression sur les parents. La lettre de protection peut également être utilisée par les professionnel.le.s pour informer des client.e.s sur la situation juridique des E/MGF en Suisse avant un séjour à l’étranger. Elle sert donc principalement à communiquer des informations générales et à participer à la protection contre l’excision. La lettre de protection est publiée par la Confédération suisse et le projet est mené par l’Office fédéral de la santé publique (OFSP). Le Réseau suisse contre l’excision a accompagné l’élaboration de la lettre de protection. La « lettre de protection contre l’excision » est disponible en allemand, français, italien, anglais, amharique, arabe, somali et tigrigna. SANTÉ SEXUELLE SUISSE est l’une des organisations responsables du Réseau suisse contre l’excision aux côtés de Caritas Suisse et du centre interdisciplinaire de recherche sur le genre de l’université de Berne (IZFG)."

• SANTÉ SEXUELLE SUISSE
• Lettre de protection contre l’excision
• Office fédéral de la santé publique OFSP
• Réseau suisse contre l’excision

"La violence contre les femmes a également lieu dans l'espace numérique : Il est désormais presque quotidien d'entendre parler de femmes et de jeunes filles qui ont été harcelées ou menacées sexuellement en ligne, dont les photos et les vidéos ont été partagées à leur insu ou qui ont subi un harcèlement en ligne. Notre organisation partenaire albanaise « Counselling Line for Women and Girls » (CLWG) offre des conseils aux femmes et aux filles qui subissent des violences dans l'espace numérique. Ejnxh Pepa coordonne le projet sur la violence numérique au CLWG et assure également l'interface avec IAMANEH Suisse. Au printemps 2024, Ejnxh Pepa a présenté le travail du CLWG dans le domaine de la violence numérique lors d'une conférence de Medicus Mundi en Suisse et a donné des informations sur son travail à cette occasion."

• IAMANEH Suisse

Rendez-vous pour le dépôt de l‘initiative le 5 septembre 2024 à 14h00 sur la Place fédérale à Berne. Nous voulons rassembler au moins 1'000 personnes sur la Place fédérale. Et montrer une fois de plus l'importance de l' #InitiativeInclusion. Soyez là avec nous ! Le dépôt sera accessible à toutes les personnes, avec une scène accessible, des interprètes en langue des signes, un sous-titrage en direct sur un grand écran et des personnes assistantes. Aimeriez-vous nous aider sur place lors de cet événement ? Inscrivez-vous encore aujourd’hui.

• Formulaire
• Initiative-inclusion

"Les effets du réchauffement climatique sont multiples et font souvent l’objet de débats passionnés sur la scène politique. Mais souvent, les habitants des pays pauvres ne sont pas entendus sur le sujet. Et ce, bien qu’ils soient les plus touchés par les conséquences du réchauffement climatique. Le lien entre la crise climatique et la propagation des maladies est également de plus en plus visible dans les projets FAIRMED."

• FAIRMED

"Elles se sont réunies en mars pour faire la fête après avoir toutes suivi avec succès des formations de base d'un an en soins infirmiers. Lorsque ces jeunes femmes âgées de 17 à 20 ans auront obtenu leur diplôme, elles trouveront facilement du travail dans des hôpitaux privés. Elles commenceront avec un salaire de départ de 15.000 roupies indiennes par mois (environ 160 francs suisses) - trois à cinq fois plus qu'un journalier ou une aide ménagère, selon Tuli, la responsable de la formation de CR."

• Stiftung Calcutta Rescue
• Newsletter CR

"Broken Chair est un monument connu de tous. Mais que représente-t-il ? Nous profitons de son actuelle restauration pour rappeler ce qu’elle symbolise : la lutte contre l’utilisation d’armes explosives sur les populations civiles. Les travaux dureront tout le mois de juillet."

• Handicap International

"De retour à Genève après une mission à Gaza en mars avec Handicap International, j’ai été ébranlée par ce que j’ai vu : la situation est catastrophique. Sans une aide humanitaire conséquente et inclusive, le nombre de personnes en situation de handicap va augmenter de manière significative. (...) Le nombre de personnes handicapées à Gaza va augmenter de manière significative, c'est certain. Même une blessure ou une fracture apparemment mineure, si elle est mal soignée ou si elle s'infecte, ce qui arrive souvent compte tenu des terribles conditions d'hygiène, peut entraîner des handicaps à vie."

• Handicap International

La pandémie COVID-19 a montré qu'aucun pays au monde n'était suffisamment préparé à une pandémie. Les 194 États membres de l'Organisation mondiale de la santé (OMS) ont donc décidé fin 2021 de tirer les leçons de cette pandémie et d'élaborer un accord mondial sur des mesures transfrontalières contraignantes afin de prévenir de futures crises sanitaires mondiales. Par exemple, la coopération, la coordination, la solidarité , ainsi qu'une coopération intersectorielle sont essentielles. Il s'agit notamment d'accélérer l'analyse des données épidémiologiques, d'améliorer la communication sur les risques et de renforcer les systèmes de santé nationaux et locaux. Dans ce numéro, vous découvrirez les leçons tirées de la pandémie de Covid-19 et les mesures concrètes mises en œuvre pour prévenir de futures crises sanitaires. Nous rendons également compte d'un échange entre des parlementaires et des expert∙e∙s suisses de la santé sur des questions relatives à la sécurité sanitaire actuelle.

• Medicus Mundi Suisse

"The Global Health Centre's Governing Pandemics Initiative just published its fourth Snapshot issue. Following the 77th World Health Assembly (WHA)’s endorsement of a delay of up to one-year for finalising a Pandemic Agreement, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) is set to resume its work with a two-day session on 16-17 July 2024. INB member states will be facing two potentially contentious procedural issues, as well as thorny debates over the resolution of substantive matters including: a system for Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS); references to One Health; and a formula assuring more equitable access to pandemic health products, where wide gaps remain. The debate around these outstanding issues is a focus of this latest issue, which also unpacks the WHA-approved amendments to the International Health Regulations and their meaning. Read!"

• Graduate Institute - Global Health Centre

"Following the 77th World Health Assembly (WHA)’s endorsement of a delay of up to one year for finalizing a pandemic agreement, the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) is set to resume talks on 16-17 July 2024. INB member states will face contentious procedural issues and thorny debates over the resolution of substantive matters including a system for Pathogen Access and Benefit Sharing (PABS), One Health; and a formula assuring more equitable access to pandemic health products, where wide gaps remain. Debate around these outstanding issues is a focus of this latest issue of the Governing Pandemics Snapshot."

• Health Policy Watch

Pendant longtemps, la violence obstétricale est restée invisible. Pourtant, elle dépasse en dimension de nombreuses autres formes de violence basée sur le genre. Une expérience positive de l'accouchement et l'absence de violence pendant l'accouchement sont des droits fondamentaux des parturientes. Et ils sont essentiels pour réduire la morbidité et la mortalité liées à l'accouchement.

• Medicus Mundi Suisse

"UNAIDS will launch a new report, The Urgency of Now: AIDS at a Crossroads just ahead of the 25th International AIDS Conference #AIDS2024 in Munich, Germany. The report will demonstrate that ending AIDS as a public health threat is achievable by 2030 but that success is being threatened by pushes to reduce funding and to restrict human rights."

• UNAIDS

"Girls’ education as a tool to prevent HIV infection has been centered at the 1st African Union Pan-African Conference on Girls’ and Women’s Education in Africa. This followed African leaders designating education as the 2024 African Union theme of the year. At a high-level side event hosted by the Education Plus Initiative on the first day of conference held at the African Union Commission in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, leaders, girls’ and women’s networks and advocates called for greater investments in girls’ education. “Some people claim that providing girls with secondary education is too expensive. Such claims fail to consider the exponentially higher cost of not educating them,” said UNAIDS Executive Director, Winnie Byanyima. “We can get all our girls and boys to complete secondary education; that should be our legacy."

• UNAIDS

"None of the over 2,000 young women and girls injected twice a year with a new drug, lenacapavir, contracted HIV in one of the most important advances in HIV prevention. Gilead Sciences announced these results last Friday, reporting that its Phase 3 PURPOSE 1 trial, conducted in South Africa and Uganda involving 2,134 women and girls aged 16-25, had been so successful that it was terminating early. Its announcement has been widely hailed as a huge breakthrough in the HIV sector where a vaccine has been elusive, and a range of groups urged Gilead to priorise early access to lenacapavir."

• Health Policy Watch

"From a solar panel to a sanitary pads, these fully equipped waterproof bags are helping keep girls in school and address period poverty. Ugandan entrepreneur Jamila Mayanja has distributed 12,000 so far and hopes to reach a million soon. Watch her video message."

• BBC News Africa

"As a Non-State Actor in official relations with WHO, Women in Global Health attended the 77th World Health Assembly (WHA77) together with several of our Chapters. Our focus was on commitments towards gender-responsive health systems and a gender-equal health and care workforce. We continued to note challenges around commitments to gender equality, which we first reported on at the start of 2024 in our World Health Organisation 154th Executive Board newsletter."

• Women in Global Health

"Donors disbursed $14.2 billion for sexual and reproductive health and rights funding in 2022. Who were the biggest funders and how does it compare to total ODA? Plus, USAID localization stalls, and U.S. Republicans' plan for aid. (...) Sexual and reproductive health and rights are a big and growing area of development funding. In 2022, disbursements related to SRHR amounted to $14.2 billion, up from $12.7 billion the year before, according to a report from Deutsche Stiftung Weltbevölkerung, an organization that focuses on the health needs of young people."

• Devex

"This article, drawing from the "Too Southern to Be Funded" report and Transparency International's IDA21 report, underscores the critical need for GHIs to fund CSOs. Despite their essential role in delivering health services, advocating for policy changes, and ensuring accountability, CSOs face substantial funding challenges due to stringent donor requirements, lack of direct funding channels, capacity constraints, and perceived risks. Funding CSOs is not only equitable but also efficient, as local organizations often provide better value for money and enhance program sustainability. The article offers recommendations for GHIs, including creating dedicated funding channels, enhancing capacity building, promoting inclusive funding practices, fostering partnerships, increasing transparency, and supporting long-term funding. Addressing these disparities is vital for sustainable health outcomes and global equity, providing a clear roadmap for GHIs to better support CSOs and achieve more effective health interventions worldwide."

• Aidspan

"Health care providers play a crucial role in delivering quality family planning and reproductive health. By understanding and addressing the factors that influence providers, we can strengthen provider behavior change efforts globally. Breakthrough ACTION developed a suite of provider behavior change tools that can guide you and your team in identifying and prioritizing factors influencing provider behavior, designing effective provider behavior change interventions, and measuring their outcomes and impact. (...) The toolkit guides users through an empathy-focused, four-step process that supports providers, clients, and district health teams in identifying and prioritizing the root causes of provider behavior and generating local solutions."

• Breakthrough Action & Research
• Provider Behavior Change Toolkit for Family Planning
• Approaching Provider Behavior Change Monitoring and Evaluation With a Social-Ecological Lens brief
• REGISTER TO JOIN Q&A SESSIONS: July 16,18,31

"Nous avons le plaisir de vous informer qu’Interface - Fonds de soutien à la recherche partenariat de l’UNIL - lance son premier appel à projet Volteface, sur la thématique de la Santé articulée aux enjeux de durabilité. Il est développé à l’UNIL par la Plateforme Durabilité et Santé de la Faculté de Biologie et de Médecine et le Centre de Compétences en Durabilité, et soutenu par Interface. Un workshop de préparation, qui réunira les (potentiel·les) partenaires de terrain et chercheur·euses est organisé le 3 septembre 2024, 9h-12h, au Vortex (Dorigny), salle Nucléo. Au plaisir de découvrir les initiatives riches, novatrices et originales que vous saurez proposer pour répondre à ces défis, nous vous adressons nos cordiales salutations. Pour Interface : Cléolia Sabot. Pour la Plateforme Durabilité et Santé : Julia Holguera Gonzalez. Pour le Conseil scientifique de l’appel à projet : Alain Kaufmann - alain.kaufmann@unil.ch

• UNIL
• Plateforme Durabilité et Santé

"Each year during the World Health Organization (WHO)’s World Health Assembly (WHA) happening in May, the Platform hosts a series of side events and discussions around critical global health issues, raising awareness among member states attending WHA meetings. Our annual Geneva Health Week took place from 26 to 29 May 2024 at the Geneva Graduate Institute, which included the Open Briefing to the 77th World Health Assembly and three WHA side events. Watch all our #WHA side events now available on our YouTube channel."

• YouTube
• Graduate Institute - Global Health Centre

“The series of crises and shocks the world has suffered in recent years – including disease outbreaks, financial crises, multiple conflicts and the deepening impacts of climate change – have raised fears that commitments to UHC will be seriously undermined. In 2022, in light of these concerns, Chatham House established the Commission for Universal Health to look at ways to support countries in maintaining and accelerating progress towards UHC. Drawing on the work of the commission, this report explores examples of where, and how, conditions of crisis and shock have had a catalytic role in driving universal health initiatives, and offers recommendations for leaders currently considering launching or expanding UHC reforms. (...) The report endorses the World Health Organization’s finding that investment of an additional 1 per cent of GDP for primary healthcare is a realistic target for countries transitioning to UHC."

• Chatham House Commission

"With just six years remaining to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), global progress is alarmingly insufficient, with a mere 17 per cent of the targets currently on track, according to a new UN report released on Friday. The 2024 Sustainable Development Goals Report highlighted that nearly half the 17 targets are showing minimal or moderate progress, while over a one-third are stalled or going in reverse, since they were adopted by UN Member States back in 2015 to bring peace and prosperity for people and the planet."

• United Nations
• The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2024

"Malaria impacts millions of lives, mostly in continental Africa, and especially so in the WHO African Region, where 233 million cases accounted for about 94% of global cases in 2022. Progress in curbing malaria has somewhat plateaued since 2015, due to factors that include drug and insecticide resistance, poor availability of rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) and artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs), and socio-behavior factors. The approval of two new vaccines against malaria—RTS,S/AS01 vaccine in 2021 and more recently the R21/Matrix-M vaccine [3, 4]—has reenergized the fight against malaria. These vaccines were developed with support from public sector and philanthropic partners, and with contributions from African scientists and communities. They have the potential for high impact and are remarkable additions to the toolkit of malaria control."

• Plos Global Public Health

"South Africa is ramping up its response against mpox after two people died from the infectious disease within a week this month. But as the country's government turns to donors to secure potentially lifesaving drugs, health activists ask why such requests are necessary when wealthier countries are sitting on large stockpiles. (...) "We probably have a few hundred cases that we don't know about," says Salim Abdool Karim, a Durban-based epidemiologist who played a leading role in the country's COVID-19 response. This prediction is safe to assert because none of the current cases have a recent history of travel, meaning that they acquired the virus locally, and do not appear to have infected each other."

• ThinkGlobalHealth

"In remote communities of Guyana, the introduction of new satellite technology is enabling freshly trained community health workers to get patients an accurate diagnosis and rapid, appropriate treatment in ways unimaginable only a few years ago. In Rwanda, meanwhile, the government’s achievement in getting the COVID-19 vaccine innovator, BioNTech, to set up its first mRNA manufacturing facility in Kigali is a success story that small island states in the Caribbean would love to emulate."

• Health Policy Watch

"Uganda’s National Medical Stores facility in Entebbe holds and distributes essential health commodities including medicines, diagnostics and 14 types of vaccines to more than 3,500 health facilities across the country. It is the beating heart of Uganda’s cold chain systems: the flow of temperature-sensitive medicines and vaccines from manufacturers to patients, including the tools needed to administer them. The Global Fund works with Uganda’s Ministry of Health and National Medical Stores to strengthen that cold chain, applying decades of expertise building systems to deliver HIV, TB and malaria medicines across countries and continents."

• The Global Fund

"Africa’s health worker shortage is projected to reach more than six million by 2030 – and the weaker the system, the more likely health workers are to leave as poor working conditions erode their morale. The non-profit organisation, Seed Global Health works to address this shortage by investing in long-term training and support for health workers in four countries – Malawi, Sierra Leone, Uganda, and Zambia – via partnerships with health ministries. For Seed, long-term means “for as long as our partners will have us”, says CEO Dr Vanessa Kerry, who is also the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Climate Envoy. Seed launched its 2030 strategic plan last week, an ambitious programme that requires the organisation to raise at least $100 million."

• Health Policy Watch

"The global health workforce crisis is not just a matter of numbers but also a crisis of decent work and equity, according to Genevieve Gencianos from Public Services International (PSI). Speaking at the “Care for Care Workers” conference on June 29 in Brussels, Gencianos, alongside activists, trade unionists, and health officials, called for a new approach to tackle the problems facing public health systems worldwide, particularly the retention and recruitment of health workers."

• People's Health Dispatch

"On June 20, 2024, over 21,000 health workers from more than 80 countries will attend the tenth edition of Teach to Reach, a two-day peer learning conference organized by the Geneva Learning Foundation. This event is not just another conference—it’s part of a growing movement that recognizes the power of local knowledge and action to solve global health challenges. This 10th edition will focus on two pressing issues: the intersection of climate change and health and the future of immunization."

• Health Policy Watch

"In a first for healthier diets, WHO has issued a “strong recommendation” that countries tax sugar-sweetened beverages as part of a wider effort to combat the powerful health impacts of the industrial foods industry – whose marketing of sugar, sodium and fat-laced, processed foods is linked with millions of deaths annually. WHO also issued more “conditional” recommendations in favor of the taxation of unhealthy foods and the subsidizing of healthier options, in its new guidelines on “Fiscal Policies to Promote Healthy Diets,” launched Friday. The first-ever WHO recommendations on food pricing policies comes only days after a scathing report by WHO’s European Region, that found unhealthy foods amongst the top four commercial products that cause some 19 million deaths annually worldwide, including 2.7 million deaths in the WHO’s European Region."

• Health Policy Watch

"WHO has identified climate change as the greatest health threat of the 21st century. The 2015 Rockefeller Foundation–Lancet Commission found that six of nine planetary boundaries had been breached, including land system change, freshwater depletion, and biodiversity loss, with ocean acidification approaching the boundary. These planetary boundaries interact with climate change and will also pose considerable challenges to health. (...) However, the complex relationships between climate change and NCDs are not widely understood. In this Comment, we explore the synergism between climate change and NCDs and also show how climate change mitigation and adaptation actions can also reduce NCD risks."

• The Lancet

"Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) account for 74% of all deaths and 86% of premature deaths in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Yet, the world is far from meeting the globally agreed targets for their control. Even in this unprecedented era for discovery of new therapies for NCDs, the ability to equitably deliver both old and new interventions is lagging. WHO has clear best-buys for prevention and management of NCDs, but policy and service coverage of these interventions is poor in many countries. NCD service delivery remains a crucial gap undermining efforts towards universal health coverage, which increases inequities in health, poverty, and economic losses. Implementation research is a crucial tool to bridge the know–do gap, focusing on understanding the adoption, integration, and sustainability of evidence-based interventions within real-world health systems."

• The Lancet

To run the secretariat of Medicus Mundi International (MMI) and to take care of its wide range of activities we are looking for an: Executive Secretary, 40% (or 60% in combination with G2H2 Secretariat). Place of work: Geneva (flexible). At the same time MMI and G2H2 are advertising a position as Executive Secretary for the Geneva Global Health Hub (G2H2) hosted by MMI. It is possible to apply for both positions within a 60% post. Please do so separately, by responding to both vacancy announcements.For further information regarding the position of the MMI Executive Secretary, 40%, please contact Martin Leschhorn, President Medicus Mundi International, mleschhorn@medicusmundi.ch - Applications for the position of the MMI Executive Secretary (including motivation letter) should be sent by email to: Martin Leschhorn Strebel, Director Medicus Mundi Switzerland, mleschhorn@medicusmundi.ch, by 12 July 2024.

• Medicus Mundi International (MMI)
• Geneva Global Health Hub G2H2
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