With a global shortage of medical commodities needed for COVID-19, such as test kits, reagents, and personal protective equipment for health-care and other essential workers, the news that WHO has listed the first two diagnostic tests for emergency use during the COVID-19 pandemic is a welcome step towards enabling countries that are struggling to get their hands on testing-related items,…
GIZ BACKUP Health is a global program, implemented on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), which supports recipient countries in their partnership with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. GIZ BACKUP Health, the Global Fund, and the Heidelberg Institute of Global Health organized a training session for five African countries that are…
On the day that the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. surpassed 600,000, President Donald Trump announced that he would suspend funding to the World Health Organization, alleging that it had severely mismanaged the coronavirus pandemic, and accusing it of a “cover-up”. President Trump said the WHO, which is leading the global response to the pandemic, had…
Health workers in low income countries (LICs) find it difficult and often financially unrewarding, and are often taken for granted, when the national cake is being shared. The same may be said for teachers and other critical social sector workers who help to determine the foundations of social development and long term economic well-being. Our economics, however, seems to focus…
South Africa instituted a 21-day national ‘lockdown’ on 26 March 2020, when the country had fewer than 100 reported cases of COVID-19. After 14 days President Cyril Ramaphosa extended the lockdown for a further two weeks, until the end of April. At the time of publication, South Africa had reported 2,415 confirmed cases of COVID-19, and 27 deaths. The Daily…
In this second audit of Global Fund grants in Angola, the Global Fund’s Office of the Inspector General found that the country’s grants are performing poorly. New infection rates and mortality rates increased for HIV, TB, and malaria compared to the regional average, and even to the country’s own rates in 2012. The OIG audit opinion was that domestic financing, community…
On April 9, the Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria unanimously approved two temporary, extraordinary measures to enable flexibilities within current Global Fund grants in order to ensure continuity of programs, and to provide additional direct support to countries for their responses to COVID-19. A background document provided to the Board described these two decisions…
The first cases of COVID-19 appeared in Africa in March, and the epidemic is spreading, albeit at a slower rate than in European countries – or so it would seem. Civil society organizations (CSOs) in several African countries are organizing their responses, aware of the danger that the pandemic presents for their countries and their populations. These organizations have witnessed…
The COVID-19 pandemic is currently wreaking havoc in Western European countries and the United States of America (U.S.), according to the World Health Organization. As of 31 March, Corona Virus had infected more than 250 000 people in the U.S. and Italy combined, more than the 81 000 in China, where the epidemic originated in December 2019. Italy and Spain each…
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