WHO celebrates 75 years in global health action: Global health newsletter edition – 10

By Megha Kaveri  

The World Health Organization (WHO) is 75 years old! 

This week, the global health agency will host a list of events to commemorate and celebrate its birthday. As the apex body for fostering international collaboration and cooperation in health and well-being. The WHO inaugurated a picture exhibition in Geneva on 3 April 2023, showcasing some of the best photographs over its 75 years of history. You can see more here.

In this edition’s reminder that COVID-19 is still around, the WHO recommended that healthy individuals with no serious conditions need not take booster shots anymore. The agency’s recommendation added that countries should now focus on ensuring their older and vulnerable population are vaccinated and boosted once in six to 12 months since the previous shot. These recommendations come at a time when vaccine manufacturers like Pfizer and Moderna are looking to increase the prices of COVID-19 vaccines. Read more about the latest WHO advice here.

European Union’s drug laws are being revamped as we speak. The draft of the new set of regulations is expected to be out on 26 April. What provided the impetus for this process? The shortage of medicines in Europe during last winter and COVID-19 exposed the problems plaguing the bloc when it came to pharma manufacturing and distribution. The new regulations are aimed at fixing these issues in the future. Here’s an explainer about the new set of rules.  

The way mental health is linked to almost every situation in our daily lives never fails to marvel me. A recent study has revealed that food insecurity is linked to anxiety and depression. Read the findings in this piece. 

Last but not the least, a jobs board exclusively for opportunities in global health organisations (from internships to senior positions) is life on the Geneva Global Health Platform website. Check it out here. 

ICYMI reads: 

Chinese researchers release genomic data that could help clarify the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic (Science magazine)

How Poverty and Racism ‘Weather’ the Body, accelerating ageing and Disease (NPR)

Events:

Averting a collision course? Beyond the pandemic instrument and the International Health Regulations (26 April 2023, 4 pm CEST; Geneva Graduate Institute). Register here. 

Podcasts: 

BBC Health Check: The newest episode is here! Could armpit sweat help tackle anxiety?

Papers: 

Call for papers: Oxford Open Digital Health

Digital health and Universal Health Coverage. More details are here.  

Vaccine Politics: Law and Inequality in the pandemic response to COVID-19 

The social media diet: A scoping review to investigate the association between social media, body image and eating disorders amongst young people

We hope you liked our curation of selected news pieces for you. We aim to improve our choices in the coming days. Global Health Initiative is a student initiative at Geneva Graduate Institute where students passionate about global health policy meet and network. For more information about us, check us out on Instagram @graduateinstitute_ghi  

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Whilst you are here!

The Graduate Press is currently raising funds for our 5th-anniversary print edition and we need your help. The last 5 years at the institute have seen some incredible highs and lows and TGP has been there for them all. Now TGP wants to immortalise that history.

If you can, we are currently accepting donations via our GoFundMe page.And if you would like to be involved with The Graduate Press and the 5th anniversary edition you can email us at gisa.thegraduate@graduateinstitute.ch or via Instagram.