Autumn 2006

Here are some from me (Tom) and some from Albert Lim in Newcastle. Medsin Newcastle are taking on the job of writing the Global Health News...

Margaret Chan elected as the new Director General of the WHO amidst controversy and student protest

Much of the globe has now been hit by the lethal strain of bird flu that is fast becoming a major avian killer around the world. Millions of birds have died or been destroyed as a result of outbreaks in dozens of countries since the H5N1 strain emerged in South-East Asia in 2003, before spreading to Europe and Africa.

Warning over global bird flu plan. A third of countries which have drawn up flu pandemic plans have failed to set out how they would distribute medical treatment, a report has found.

World Food Day 16 October 2006. The World Food Day and TeleFood theme for 2006 is Investing in agriculture for food security which is critical to halve hunger by 2015

UN health agency launches initiative to fight corruption in medicines procurement. With up to $50 billion spent every year on pharmaceutical products and recent estimates showing that as much as 25 per cent of procured medicines can be lost to fraud, bribery and other corrupt practices, the United Nations health agency today launched a new initiative to help governments combat corruption.

Pandemic flu would outrun vaccine! 350 million doses produced annually are not enough. Eight years after first drawing attention to a global shortage of flu vaccines, the World Health Organization yesterday said the failure to increase vaccine production means that billions of people would be unnecessarily vulnerable to a pandemic flu outbreak

Who will lead the Global Fund? On Nov 1, the next Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria will be announced. We previously challenged the Fund to ask the candidates to publish an election platform, to give credibility to the selection. The Fund replied that "your approach would inject into the process the very politics that we have been trying to keep out of it". The names of the five candidates have leaked into the public domain, and here we present their details.

World Bank To Give Additional $400M To Combat Malaria Worldwide. World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz on Thursday announced that the bank will contribute an additional $400 million to global malaria control efforts by 2008. Speaking at the launch of a public awareness campaign organized by the Roll Back Malaria at the bank's headquarters in Washington, D.C., Wolfowitz said the additional funding was "just a fraction of what is needed" and urged greater coordination, accountability and transparency in the fight against malaria

Last updated on Sunday 06 April 2008 at 22:24.