Symbolic imageCongo's Ebola outbreak has hit 4,053 cases and 1,850 deaths, prompting WHO experts to urge a full Ervebo trial against the Bundibugyo strain. Food prices are at a three-year high as Sudan's war shuts millions of children out of school.
This topic follows the withdrawal of American money from international health programmes under President Donald Trump and what that does to vaccination and HIV treatment elsewhere. Al Jazeera reports that the Trump administration has cut the World Health Organization off from funding channelled through Gavi, the vaccine alliance, a step that follows a long-running feud between Trump and the UN health body. The United Nations has forecast that reduced global HIV funding could produce a new epidemic. Russia's Health Ministry says its own HIV programmes do not depend on international money and that the cuts will not cause an epidemic there. Gennady Onishchenko called the UN forecast not unfounded and said richer countries must pay for treatment in poorer ones.
The war in Sudan has left more than 8 million children out of school and affected nearly three-quarters of the country's schools, threatening an entire generation's future, the UN warned. A human rights alliance separately called for an investigation into alleged chemical weapons use in the conflict, The National reported.
The UN food price index rose in July to 131.1 points, its highest reading in more than three years, the FAO said on Friday. Heatwaves, the war in Ukraine and escalation in the Gulf lifted cereal, sugar and vegetable oil costs.
Congo's Ebola outbreak has reached 4,053 confirmed cases and 1,850 deaths, the country's worst on record. WHO vaccine experts on Friday recommended a full-scale human trial of the Ervebo vaccine against the Bundibugyo strain.
Africa CDC said on Thursday that confirmed Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo have passed 4,000 and that studies will check whether the Bundibugyo virus is mutating. Congolese teams are screening more than 300 passengers from a river boat intercepted near Kinshasa.
The United Nations says child deaths in Afghanistan are rising as food distribution programmes are cut, The Hindu reported on Wednesday. The report links the cuts to funding shortfalls; no figures were given in the available reporting.
The WHO says the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is spreading faster than the response is being scaled up, with new cases doubling in some hotspots within a week. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said so on Wednesday after visiting Kinshasa.
The UN's World Food Programme warned on Wednesday that a rapidly developing El Niño could push about 50 million people into acute hunger before the end of 2027. It would be the strongest such system in at least 70 years.
The UN says hunger and malnutrition are rising sharply in Afghanistan, where more than a third of the population needs urgent food assistance. The World Food Programme said on Tuesday it can currently feed only one in nine of the acutely hungry.
The WHO says the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed more than 1,600 people. It told a briefing on Tuesday that the outbreak is still expanding beyond the capacity of the response.
The Economist reported on Monday on how poor countries are dealing with cuts to American AIDS funding. Only a summary of the report is available, so the scale of the effect on treatment programmes cannot be detailed here.
The United States has restored some funding for vaccine and health programmes run by Unicef, Gavi and the World Food Programme, the New York Times reported on Sunday. The sum remains far below earlier US spending on humanitarian and health aid but resumes money for work against malnutrition and disease.
At the World AIDS Conference in Rio de Janeiro everything revolves around aid money that is failing to arrive, above all from the Trump administration, the FAZ reported on Saturday. New infection numbers are rising even though the virus could be kept in check, according to the paper.
The WHO said on Saturday that the Ebola epidemic in the Democratic Republic of Congo, running since May, is still spreading and that current containment efforts are not enough. More than 3,500 infections have been confirmed.
Experts told the Guardian that new injectable PrEP could dramatically reduce HIV infections worldwide, but that USAID cuts and a sharp decline in prevention investment are preventing access. The Telegraph reported that trials show lenacapavir can all but eliminate infection, yet almost no one can obtain it in the Latin American countries where it was tested.
The Trump administration cut the WHO off from Gavi vaccine alliance funding, Al Jazeera reported, following a long-running feud between Trump and the UN health body. Russia's Health Ministry said cuts to global HIV funding will not cause an epidemic in Russia because its HIV programmes do not depend on international money, while Gennady Onishchenko called the UN forecast of a new HIV epidemic not unfounded and said richer countries must pay for treatment in poorer ones.