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Costa Rica is an upper middle-income country with notable progress in human development largely attributable to its successful establishment of universal health care, education and social protection programmes. Nevertheless, the country faces a series of challenges, including elevated degrees of inequality, intensified and escalated by the socioeconomic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Leading health agencies outline updated terminology for pathogens that transmit through the air

Following consultation with public health agencies and experts, the World Health Organization (WHO) publishes a global technical consultation report introducing updated terminology for pathogens that transmit through the air. The pathogens covered include those that cause respiratory infections, e.g. COVID-19, influenza, measles, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), and tuberculosis, among others.

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Building Resilient Healthcare in Kyrgyzstan: Mitigating the Impacts of COVID-19 through Strategic Partnerships

Like most countries, Kyrgyzstan’s healthcare service delivery has been severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Among others, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GF), Gavi the Vaccine Alliance, Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), World Bank (WB) and World Health Organization (WHO) coordinated their actions to address various critical health issues identified by the government, such as reinforcing workforce capacity, increasing vaccination coverage and maintaining essential health services. Collaboration was enhanced through stakeholder consultations, high-level policy meetings, joint planning and resource mobilization. This collaboration aligns with commitments made by the agencies under the Global Action Plan for Healthy Lives and Wellbeing for All (SDG3 GAP) Action Plan for Healthy Lives and Wellbeing for All (SDG3 GAP). Activities undertaken during the pandemic have strengthened the country's primary healthcare (PHC) capabilities and its preparedness to respond to future crises.

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WHO launches CoViNet: a global network for coronaviruses

WHO has launched a new network for coronaviruses, CoViNet, to facilitate and coordinate global expertise and capacities for early and accurate detection, monitoring and assessment of SARS-CoV-2, MERS-CoV and novel coronaviruses of public health importance.

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Integrated health care for older people in the Republic of Mauritius

Mr Hanslall Seebaruth, lives in Port Louis, Republic of Mauritius and previously worked in the Judicial Department of Mauritius and Supreme Court. Today, he is proud to be President of the Senior Citizens Council, which represents over 260 000 older Mauritians.

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Call for urgent agreement on international deal to prepare for and prevent future pandemics

A high-powered intervention by 23 former national Presidents, 22 former Prime Ministers, a former UN General Secretary and 3 Nobel Laureates is being made today to press for an urgent agreement from international negotiators on a Pandemic Accord, under the Constitution of the World Health Organizaion, to bolster the world’s collective preparedness and response to future pandemics.

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Digital payments to health workers boost retention, motivation, and impact

An immunization worker gets set up to receive her wages on her mobile wallet in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Credit: WHO

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Donors making a difference: WHO, communities and partners collaborate to end infectious diseases

WHO and Angolan health officials on a mission to stamp out Guinea worm disease ©WHO/Omotola Akindipe

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New South-South health cooperation initiative launched linking Africa and the Caribbean

The Health Development Partnership for Africa and the Caribbean (HeDPAC), a new initiative to strengthen South-South health cooperation between Africa and the Caribbean, was launched today.

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Donors Making a Difference for Universal Health Coverage

Health for all is the foundation of resilient communities that contribute to a more prosperous, peaceful and sustainable future. Today, more than ever, the health and well-being of people everywhere is under threat. In an increasingly turbulent world confronted by climate change, conflict, disease outbreaks and complex health emergencies, countries need to deliver Universal Health Coverage (UHC) urgently to protect their populations.

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Patients’ stories paint a vivid picture of antimicrobial resistance

Many countries have created action plans to tackle antimicrobial resistance, but relatively few of those plans are fully activated and adequately funded, a new WHO publication explains. Above, a pediatrician screens a young patient for a respiratory tract infection in Armenia. ©WHO/Nazik Armenakyan

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Donors making a difference: the resilient spirit of women providing and receiving health care

WHO, with the support of its donors and partners, recognizes women around the world who are receiving and providing essential health care. From performing vaccinations in remote areas to giving mental health care and advice in areas where it is considered taboo, the women featured in these WHO stories represent pillars of strength and hope in global health care.

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WHO recommends R21/Matrix-M vaccine for malaria prevention in updated advice on immunization

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended a new vaccine, R21/Matrix-M, for the prevention of malaria in children. The recommendation follows advice from the WHO: Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) and the Malaria Policy Advisory Group (MPAG) and was endorsed by the WHO Director-General following its regular biannual meeting held on 25-29 September.

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Donors making a difference: Health priorities take centre stage at UNGA

Health workers at their WHO-supported clinic on the remote Murghab plateau in eastern Tajikistan. ©WHO

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Unprecedented focus on global public health at UN General Assembly

WHO is urging leaders meeting at the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA 78) in New York to put health for all on the highest political agenda and apply lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. WHO’s appeal comes as the world faces multiple humanitarian and climate-related crises which are threatening lives and livelihoods around the world.

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Standing Strong and Brave, Amid Strife

For two decades conflict has torn through the forested northeastern provinces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in Ituri, in North Kivu and the territories of Nyiragongo, Rutshuru and Masisi; it’s also affected the province of South Kivu, and far to the region’s south-east, by Kalemie on the long shores of Lake Tanganyika.

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In the Solomon Islands, many rivers to cross

It takes two days’ journey at least from Honiara, capital of the Solomon Islands, to reach the mountain village of Kuvamiti to provide and deliver routine health care and immunization for the people who live and work there. Supply efforts and logistics were even more arduous during the COVID-19 pandemic. A COVID-19 vaccination team driver and his colleague were nearly lost to strong undersurface river currents late last year near Kuvamiti.

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A vaccination outreach team on the move in Tanzania. ©WHO, 2023

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Donors making a difference: healthier communities across Africa

COVID-19 vaccination at a nomad encampment in Chad. ©WHO

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Donors making a difference: Setting goals, producing results

Countries are making gains against liver disease through hepatitis B vaccination. Above, newly vaccinated triplets in Kyrgyzstan © WHO/Almaz Zhumaliev

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Urgent action needed to tackle stalled progress on health-related Sustainable Development Goals

WHO is releasing the 2023 edition of its annual World Health Statistics report with new figures on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic and the latest statistics on progress towards the health-related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

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Donors making a difference: immunization

A cholera vaccination in Malawi. ©WHO

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Vaccinating on the Borderlands, Mali

With a population of just over 20 000, Ménaka is the largest outpost in the Malian southeast frontier with Niger.

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Donors making a difference: for refugees and other displaced people

Drive-up vaccination was part of a 10-day campaign this month to protect Syrians from cholera, especially in earthquake-stricken areas where the risk of infectious disease is rising. ©WHO

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COVID-19 vaccination is rising in many vulnerable African communities thanks to EU-funded, WHO-led project

In Niger, a COVID-19 vaccination team heads out into the countryside to reach people outside their clinic. ©WHO

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Sierra Leone: the last mile of COVID-19 vaccine delivery

Sierra Leone, a smallish coastal nation of 7 million in the West African tropics interlaced by savannah and forest and grassland, was well on its recovery path from a hard bout with Ebola from 2014-2016 when the Covid-19 pandemic arrived.

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Donors making a difference in earthquakes and other complex health emergencies

WHO health supplies bound for earthquake zones last week. ©WHO

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WHO updates COVID-19 guidelines on masks, treatments and patient care

WHO has updated its guidelines on mask wearing in community settings, COVID-19 treatments, and clinical management. This is part of a continuous process of reviewing such materials, working with guideline development groups composed of independent, international experts who consider the latest available evidence and the changing epidemiology.

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Donors making a difference: building skills, building capacity

WHO-supported entomology studies focus on understanding disease vectors in South-East Asia. ©Y. Srinivas Murty, Vector Control Research Centre

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Donors making a difference in Pakistan’s flood crisis

Health worker Nizam ud din (above) vaccinates a baby in a partly submerged village. ©WHO

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Donors making a difference: The European Union teams up with WHO to boost COVID-19 vaccination coverage in Africa

Jafarasa Sadat, the provincial lead of the Expanded Programme on Immunization, administers the last shot of the day to Jauado Alifa, a community leader at Malica, a settlement for internally displaced people in Mozambique. ©WHO

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Donors making a difference in the fight against polio

The large pool of unvaccinated children in Afghanistan, while decreasing, still represents a major risk for transmission of wild poliovirus. Above: A polio vaccinator marks a home to show that the children living there have been vaccinated. ©UNICEF

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Donors making a difference in South-East Asia and the Western Pacific

Students in Port Vila, Vanuatu. ©WHO/Yoshi Shimizu

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Donors making a difference: in the lives of children

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Donors making a difference: toward universal health coverage

The world has committed to making health for all a reality.

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Donors making a difference: in the greater Horn of Africa health crisis

Cornered by drought, families are leaving their homes by the thousands in search of food, water and pasture. Above: women at a camp for internally displaced people near the town of Gode, Ethiopia. ©UNICEF/Pouget

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Donors making a difference: to global mental health

Inequality, emergencies, war and climate change threaten global mental health, says WHO’s newly released World Mental Health Report. Above: outside the Afghan Japan Hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, 2022. ©WHO

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New agreement under C-TAP aims to improve global access to COVID-19 testing technologies

A new, open, transparent sublicence agreement between the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) on behalf of C-TAP, and South African pharmaceutical company Biotech Africa will accelerate the manufacture and sale of a COVID-19 serological antibody technology around the world.

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Donors making a difference: Eliminating neglected tropical diseases and other outbreaks

Benin is one of several African countries to make significant progress against sleeping sickness. Above, a health professional holds an insect net in front of Bopa Medical Centre. ©Eric Lafforgue

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Donors making a difference: Fighting myths and misinformation

One of the biggest obstacles to ending COVID-19 has been the misinformation that leads people to reject vaccinations. WHO’s donors are supporting work to bring accurate health information to all corners of the world so that people can protect themselves from COVID-19, polio and other diseases.

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The CanSino Biologics Ad5-nCoV-S [recombinant] COVID-19 vaccine: What you need to know

The WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Immunization (SAGE) has issued updated interim policy recommendations for the use of the Ad5-nCoV-S recombinant (Ad5-nCoV) vaccine against COVID-19. This article provides a summary of those interim recommendations; you may access the full guidance document here.

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WHO and MPP announce agreement with NIH for COVID-19 health technologies

WHO’s COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) and the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) today finalized a licensing agreement with the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the development of several innovative therapeutics, early-stage vaccines and diagnostic tools for COVID-19.

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14.9 million excess deaths associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021

New estimates from the World Health Organization (WHO) show that the full death toll associated directly or indirectly with the COVID-19 pandemic (described as “excess mortality”) between 1 January 2020 and 31 December 2021 was approximately 14.9 million (range 13.3 million to 16.6 million).

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Donors making a difference: Funding a range of lifesaving immunizations for people of all ages

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The Bahamas: Protecting the population with safe and effective medicines and vaccines

During the COVID-19 pandemic, especially with the arrival of the COVID-19 vaccines, the Government of the Commonwealth of The Bahamas placed greater emphasis on regulating the importation of medicines and health technologies. The country has relied increasingly on the Caribbean Regulatory System (CRS), a regional effort that provides recommendations to authorize medical products to Caribbean countries.

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Primary health care: health systems, communities and the planet

Our planet and our health are inextricably interlinked. The air we breathe, the food we eat, the resources that we consume for livelihoods, shelter, healing and recreation all determine our quality of life and well-being.

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WHO releases 10-year strategy for genomic surveillance of pathogens

WHO is releasing a strategy to strengthen and scale up genomic surveillance around the world.

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Donors making a difference: Knocking down obstacles to COVID-19 vaccination

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United States	Cases: 46 252 513 Deaths: 750 423 Recovered: 0
India	Cases: 34 321 025 Deaths: 459 652 Recovered: 0
Brazil	Cases: 21 835 785 Deaths: 608 235 Recovered: 0
United Kingdom	Cases: 9 215 683 Deaths: 141 607 Recovered: 0
Russia	Cases: 8 494 589 Deaths: 237 619 Recovered: 0

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