News – Page 11 – Duke Global Health Innovation Center

11Aug 2022 by Melissa Slogan

AIDS 2022 Highlights COVID’s Disruptions, Innovations

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The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. August 11, 2022 By Katharine Olson and Nellie Bristol COVID-19 has disrupted clinical care and supply chains throughout the world, testing the resilience and flexibility of health systems everywhere. Services for those living with HIV/AIDS are no exception. UNAIDS’ “In Danger” report, released last week at the 24th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2022), highlighted the devastating impacts the “multiple and overlapping” crises of the last two years have had on people living with and affected by HIV. New data included in the report show shrinking resources and growing inequalities that could result in millions of new infections and AIDS-related deaths if the current course is not reversed. Galvanized by the dire projections and using the lessons and innovations fostered by the pandemic itself, conference participants,…

03Aug 2022 by Melissa Slogan

Africa CDC’s Regional Approach to Improving Biosafety and Biosecurity

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The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. August 3, 2022 By Talkmore Maruta, Senior Biosafety and Biosecurity Officer, Africa CDC and Nellie Bristol, COVID GAP With its rapidly growing urban population, high burden of infectious disease, and widespread gaps in health care capacities, Africa is particularly vulnerable to potentially devastating epidemics. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) has been on the forefront of addressing the issue. One important example is the Biosafety and Biosecurity Initiative, which aims to improve the handling of dangerous substances across the continent. Aided by new prominence given to biosafety and biosecurity as a result of COVID-19, working together with African Union Member States and supported by regional and international partners, Africa CDC has made significant progress toward a regional approach to…

21Jul 2022 by Melissa Slogan

Enhanced Preparedness Assessments Require New Capacity Building Approaches

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The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. July 21, 2022 By Nellie Bristol COVID-19 created a real-world stress test for pandemic preparedness and response. While there were some successes, many systems showed dangerous faults. The authors of national health emergency capacity assessments have analyzed those failings and incorporated lessons learned into revised tools, creating more comprehensive readiness benchmarks for future pandemics. But while the revisions expand the scope and rigor of preparedness measurements, most countries already were failing to meet standards laid out in earlier versions. Protecting lives and economies from the next crisis will take an influx of financial and technical resources, new approaches that break down capacity building into manageable tasks, and sustained, proactive leadership to ensure effective implementation. The 3rd edition of the World Health Organization’s Joint External Evaluation…

14Jul 2022 by Melissa Slogan

Toward More Nimble, Equitable Vaccination and Pandemic Response

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The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. July 14, 2022 By Nellie Bristol and Krishna Udayakumar The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s call to include an omicron component in vaccines that will be used for boosters in the U.S. beginning in fall 2022 could once again exacerbate global vaccine inequities, providing some high-income countries new vaccine options that likely won’t reach other parts of the world for months or years. The move comes even as the most recent waves of omicron, BA.4/5, which now dominate in the U.S., are proving even more contagious, more adept at evading both natural and vaccine-induced immunity, and producing disease that is not responding as well to some therapies, especially monoclonal antibodies. There also is some evidence that these variants could invade lung tissue in a way not seen in other omicron variants. All…

30Jun 2022 by kmitch@duke.edu

New report released by Duke GHIC and Global Health Technologies Coalition examines the WHO Prequalification Program

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The report, Navigating complexity to improve global access: Supporting a more efficient and effective World Health Organization Prequalification Program, examines successes and pain points of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Prequalification (PQ) Program and offers actionable recommendations to strengthen its role in facilitating global access to medical products. The report—which was informed by a quantitative analysis of the timelines of more than two dozen prequalified products and qualitative interviews with WHO staff, product developers, and regulatory experts—documents how the PQ program has played a vital role in expediting access to safe, effective, and quality-assured health products in low- and middle-income countries and accelerating downstream approvals by their national regulatory authorities. However, it also reveals key operational challenges including a lack of public reporting on expected review timelines for all product…

23Jun 2022 by Melissa Slogan

Building Public-Private Preparedness Strategies in Peru

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The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. June 23, 2022 By Nellie Bristol and Ernesto Ortiz [caption id="attachment_2889" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Image by Legado via www.flickr.com[/caption] As the COVID-19 pandemic ramped up in early 2020, Peru already was on its way to having one of the highest recorded death rates per capita of any country in the world. Its health facilities were overrun, health workers were overtaxed, or worse, infected themselves, and supplies ranging from personal protective equipment to diagnostic tests were in desperately short supply. Isolated communities were particularly in dire straits as national lock downs prevented critical supplies from reaching remote areas. Contributing to Peru’s poor performance: the informal status of more than three quarters of the labor pool making lockdown order adherence nearly impossible, poorly functioning health facilities,…

16Jun 2022 by Melissa Slogan

IGAD Regional Health Data Sharing and Protection Policy Framework

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Innovations in Healthcare (IiH) provided impact and evaluation support to the multistakeholder Blueprint for Innovative Healthcare Access program operating in Meru County, Kenya. IiH guided the development of evaluation plans, delivered workshops on key topics to strengthen evaluation capacity, and routinely validated and analyzed data from all program partners to drive greater outcomes and data-oriented decision making.The IGAD Regional Health Data Sharing and Protection Policy framework seeks to provide clear guidance for the member states on health data sharing via a set of universal principles that ensure that health data is adequately protected. This framework emphasizes the rights of patients by outlining the rights of data subjects and details the roles and responsibilities of various actors and stakeholders. Ultimately, it aims to facilitate proper data sharing practices that encourage ethical…

02Jun 2022 by Melissa Slogan

Slow Progress in Updating International Health Regulations at 75th World Health Assembly

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The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. June 2, 2022 By Nellie Bristol In the third year of a global pandemic that has caused millions of deaths and trillions of dollars in lost economic activity, the potential benefits of coordinated multi-lateral approaches, as well as the slow pace and frustrations of reaching consensus across diverse countries, was on full display at the World Health Assembly (WHA) last week. Health leaders from around the world wrestled with relatively incremental changes to health security mechanisms, agreeing only to set in motion a two-year process for modernizing the International Health Regulations (IHR). Perceived failures in response to COVID-19 and other health emergencies, have highlighted the need for faster, more effective communications between outbreak-affected countries and the World Health Organization and for mechanisms to…

18May 2022 by Melissa Slogan

Leaders Pledge Surge of Resources for COVID, Preparedness

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The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. May 18, 2022 By Nellie Bristol The U.S. government, with co-hosts Germany, Indonesia, Belize, and Senegal, galvanized a much needed blast of attention and resources toward the coronavirus pandemic and future preparedness at the second Global COVID-19 Summit May 12. In addition to new financial commitments totaling $3.2 billion, country leaders, philanthropists, private sector officials, and non-governmental organizations pledged policy changes, vaccine doses, health worker trainings, and dissemination of local lessons learned. The biggest winner was the newly conceptualized financial intermediary fund for pandemic preparedness and global health security to be housed at the World Bank, which received new pledges of $712 million, including an additional $200 million from the U.S. Other commitments to multilateral efforts supported the ACT-Accelerator, COVAX, and CEPI, though…

21Apr 2022 by Melissa Slogan

An Uncertain Outlook for the Global COVID-19 Response

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The Global Accountability Platform (COVID GAP) blog series. April 21, 2022 By Nellie Bristol We are at a crucial turning point in the COVID-19 pandemic. In the aftermath of Omicron, many countries are more than ready to transition out of the emergency phase of the pandemic – particularly wealthy countries where vaccines, therapeutics and tests are readily available. But for many low- and middle-income countries, large portions of their populations remain vulnerable to severe illness and death from COVID-19. Unfortunately, the familiar mantra “no one is safe anywhere until everyone is safe everywhere” is losing its power as a motivator to support the global response to the pandemic. High-income countries are moving on and turning their attention to other domestic and geopolitical issues. Meanwhile, poorer countries are being left behind without…