Health Policy Watch

Unsafe food causes 1.5 million deaths and 866 million illnesses each year – a burden similar to tuberculosis, according to World Health Organization (WHO) research published in The Lancet this week. The research assessed 42 major foodborne hazards – including bacteria, viruses, parasites and chemicals – from 194 countries between 2000 and 2021.  Foodborne diseases […]

The World Health Organization’s estimate of the number of suspected, but as yet unconfirmed, cases of the deadly Ebola Bundibugyo virus has sharply declined from over 1000 a week ago to just 116 today, WHO on Wednesday. That doesn’t mean that the tide has yet turned on the outbreak. But WHO officials sounded notes of […]

Tobacco companies have helped to engineer ultra-processed food (UPF) and scale up the industry, developing and distributing addictive products that are driving obesity, cancer, dementia and chronic diseases like diabetes.  This is according to one of the most comprehensive reviews of the drivers and impact of UFP, published in the American Journal of Public Health […]

Global leaders and policymakers must prepare for above-average temperatures until at least August due to El Niño conditions, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned. In a new update, the WMO indicated an 80% likelihood of an El Niño event during June–August, with a 90% probability that this could continue until at least November. Rainfall and […]

Ghana’s Parliament passed one of the most extensive, repressive anti-LGBT laws in the world late Friday, introducing prison terms for people who simply identify as lesbian and gay – but human rights groups say there was no quorum when it did so. Only 32 of the 276 Members of Parliament were present when the Human […]