Tag Archives: World Health Organization

The 73rd World Health Assembly and COVID-19

By Sarah Wetter

The 73rd World Health Assembly (WHA) convened on May 18-19, 2020. For the first time ever, representatives from the WHO’s 194 member-states came together virtually instead of in Geneva, Switzerland, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The meeting’s overarching focus was to chart a path toward overcoming the novel coronavirus, which has infected over 5 million […]

Universal health coverage: The numbers behind the headlines

By Eric A. Friedman

At the end of this posting, which is mostly about universal health coverage, please see the update on actions that, if you are in the United States, you can take to create some measure of accountability for those responsible for the genocide of the Rohingya people in Burma and to end U.S. involvement in the […]

International Human Rights Day: “The Right to Health in National Courts”

By Andrés Constantin

On 10 December 2018, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), jointly with the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, and with the support from the Government of Canada, celebrated the International Human Rights Day. The event focused on several topics concerning the right to health, which included discussions on the enforcement of the […]

Who will lead the TB response?

By John Stephens

“We will have to put poor people from affected communities at the centre of our response. We will have to organise and mobilise. And then be willing to hold our governments to account.” ~ Anele Yawa, General Secretary of the Treatment Action Campaign   A turning point for tuberculosis? This could be a big year […]

Let’s Get Physical: WHO’s Renewed Focus on Promoting Physical Activity

By Sarah Roache

In January this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) renewed its focus on physical inactivity, a key risk factor for the worldwide epidemic of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Encouraging and creating universal opportunities for physical activity is a complex, potentially costly exercise for governments, involving a wide range of public and private actors. Fresh global attention […]

Let's Get Physical: WHO's Renewed Focus on Promoting Physical Activity

By Sarah Roache

In January this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) renewed its focus on physical inactivity, a key risk factor for the worldwide epidemic of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Encouraging and creating universal opportunities for physical activity is a complex, potentially costly exercise for governments, involving a wide range of public and private actors. Fresh global attention […]

3 Updates on Zika: Transmission, Surveillance & Funding

By Rebecca Reingold

3 Updates on Zika: Transmission, Surveillance & Funding

By Rebecca Reingold

The WHO Must Include Access to Birth Control and Abortion in its Temporary Recommendations for Zika-Associated Public Health Emergency of International Concern

By O’Neill Institute

This post was written by Lawrence O. Gostin, Faculty Director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law and University Professor, Georgetown and Alexandra Phelan, an Adjunct Professor in Global Health Law at Georgetown University Law Center and Doctoral Researcher with the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. Any questions about […]

4 Challenges to Mitigating the Impact of Zika Virus Infection

By Rebecca Reingold

Yesterday, the World Health Organization announced that the Zika virus was “spreading explosively” in the Americas and that as many as three to four million people in the region could be infected in the next year. 23 countries and territories in the region have already reported cases of infection with the virus. Zika is transmitted by the Aedes mosquito, which also transmits […]