Nouvelles

"Over the last month we have seen political changes in the USA shake the foundations of societies, economies and institutions around the world. Science itself is under siege - eroded by misinformation, shrinking funding, and unprecedented cuts to international development budgets. These changes, including a shift in priorities away from health, equity, and sustainable development, are already having profound impacts on science and health both in the USA and globally. At the same time the UK has massively reduced its own overseas development assistance."

• London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)

"The US decision to gut its foreign assistance budget has been cause for panic and confusion. A head-spinning succession of announcements from organisations seeing their grants paused, then exempted, then terminated, then restored, has made it difficult to get a clear picture of the scale of the impact of US funding. The latest piece of the puzzle comes from a leaked document from the US state department, reported last week by The New York Times and shared by Politico."

• Geneva Solutions

"The World Health Organization (WHO) today launched new guidance to help all countries reform and strengthen mental health policies and systems. Mental health services worldwide remain underfunded, with major gaps in access and quality. In some countries, up to 90% of people with severe mental health conditions receive no care at all, while many existing services rely on outdated institutional models that fail to meet international human rights standards. (...) "Despite rising demand, quality mental health services remain out of reach for many people," said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. "This new guidance gives all governments the tools to promote and protect mental health and build systems that serve everyone.”

• World Health Organization (WHO)

"Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a threat to global health, food security and achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Tackling AMR is critical to preserving the world’s ability to treat diseases in humans, animals, and plants, reduce risks to food safety and security, protect the environment and maintain progress towards achieving the SDGs. Children and youth today will face the consequences of inaction and increased risks of AMR. In response, six organizations - the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) - recognize that young people can play an important role in bringing together wider society and stakeholder groups to tackle AMR."

• World Health Organization

"The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) warned last week that 58 million people risk losing life-saving assistance in the agency’s 28 most critical crisis response operations unless new funding is received urgently. In a news release issued on 28 March, WFP said that despite the generosity of many governments and individual donors, it is experiencing a steep decline in funding across its major donors. The severity of these cuts, combined with record levels of people in need, have led to an unprecedented crisis for tens of millions across the globe reliant on food aid, it added."

• Third World Network

"The concept of determinants of health has evolved significantly over time. The Industrial Revolution marked a shift in thinking about health determinants, moving from a focus on individual factors to a broader recognition of how social, economic, and environmental conditions shape population health. The Digital Revolution and the growing role of artificial intelligence (AI) are broadening our understanding of health determinants further, raising new questions about what influences health and well-being in the modern world. The health promotion community has always been at the forefront of efforts to address the determinants of health, advocating for multisectoral action and policy responses that tackle structural inequalities and challenge the practices of health-harming industries. In the face of new opportunities and problems presented by digital transformations, the health promotion community has now been called on to lead the charge in addressing the digital determinants of health (Kickbusch and Holly 2023)."

• Health Promotion International

"The Gates Foundation has signed a three-year, $7.5 million partnership to scale artificial intelligence innovations in Rwanda, on the sidelines of the Global AI Summit on Africa. The summit, convened by the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Rwandan Ministry of ICT & Innovation in collaboration with the World Economic Forum, was held last week in Kigali. Trevor Mundel, president of global health at the Gates Foundation, and Paula Ingabire, Rwanda’s minister of ICT and innovation, signed a memorandum of understanding to establish the Rwanda Artificial Intelligence Scaling Hub."

• Devex

"The tariffs imposed by the United States on goods from several African countries on Wednesday will make it even more difficult for African countries to increase their health spending, said Dr Jean Kaseya, Director General of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). These tariffs – ranging from 10% for Kenyan goods to 50% for impoverished Lesotho – come on top of the loss of billions of dollars of US aid for health programmes including vaccinations, maternal and child health, HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. (...) The Africa CDC launched a concept paper on health financing on Thursday outlining how countries could mobilise more resources for health in the face of a 70% decline in official development assistance (ODA) between 2021 and 2025, from $81 billion to $25 billion."

• Health Policy Watch

"It’s been a rough few weeks. That is if you sit in Geneva or Washington DC and see colleagues who thought they were in safe, long-term jobs have to clean their desks and look for new work. If you run emergency services in South Sudan or Myanmar or any one of hundreds of other frontline battlefields in the global fight against disease, rough doesn’t cover it. The last few weeks have been tragic, heartbreaking and cruel. The sudden and brutal end to billions of dollars in global health assistance has been costly: in thousands of lives lost; in wasted medicines and supplies that cannot be distributed; in projects and research that will end with no conclusions or results. As damaging as the cutoff of services and treatment is, the infrastructure, supply chains, surveillance and information networks that are gone overnight are even harder to rebuild."

• Geneva Health Files

"In this episode, we turn the lens on ourselves as the global health community. Host Garry Aslanyan speaks with Hani Kim and Seye Abimbola about how elite global health actors can marginalize local perspectives and knowledge. They stress the importance of localizing efforts and acknowledging implicit biases to address the structural inequalities that perpetuate health disparities. Seye Abimbola is Associate Professor at the University of Sydney School of Public Health and inaugural editor-in-chief of BMJ Global Health, and Hani Kim is Executive Director of the Research Investment for Global Health Technology (RIGHT) Foundation in South Korea."

• Listen to this episode

"The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (the Global Fund) today announced the first pledge to its Eighth Replenishment Campaign – and it comes from the private sector. The Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) has made a groundbreaking US$150 million commitment, a five-fold increase from its previous contribution. This historic pledge not only underscores CIFF’s unwavering commitment to global health, but also sets a powerful precedent for private sector leadership in the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria."

• The Global Fund

"Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases. While new treatments offer hope, the rise of drug-resistant TB strains threatens to reverse progress. This World TB Day, we highlight new research from Swiss TPH that aims to stay one step ahead of this growing health crisis."

• Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute

La Croix-Rouge suisse envoie de l’aide en Asie du Sud-Est, suite au puissant séisme qui a frappé le Myanmar. Immeubles, hôpitaux et ponts se sont effondrés. Des milliers de personnes ont perdu la vie ou ont été blessées. La Croix-Rouge suisse apporte un appui technique et financier et envoie du personnel sur place, en fonction des besoins.

• Croix-Rouge suisse

"Health facilities in two different Ugandan regions are out of stock of some lifesaving HIV treatment. The government is scrambling to address any shortfalls. A pharmacist at Kiboga Hospital in central Uganda said the facility ran out of the preferred medicine for children with HIV last Thursday. Instead, pharmacists are breaking adult formulations of the same drug down to a size they hope children will be able to tolerate.

• devex

"African health systems are at a crossroads, grappling with systemic challenges including workforce shortages, underfunded infrastructure, and climate-driven health burdens. Volatile financing—driven by unpredictable donor commitments and competing global priorities—has left countries vulnerable to disruptions in essential services. The urgency for reform is amplified by overlapping crises, from pandemic recovery to climate shocks, demanding a reimagined approach to health financing that prioritises African agency and long-term sustainability."

• Center for Global