Reuters: Congo declares end of Ebola outbreak, sees lessons for COVID fight “Democratic Republic of Congo announced the end of an almost six-month Ebola outbreak in the west of the country on Wednesday as health authorities looked to apply lessons from the successful response to the fight against COVID-19 in…

AP: Official warns of humanitarian disaster if Afghan talks fail (Faiez, 11/18). Borgen Magazine: New Way of Working: Combining Humanitarian and Development Efforts (Bassi, 11/17). The Guardian: Researchers confirm human-to-human transmission of rare virus in Bolivia (Glenza, 11/16). NPR: In ‘Fevers, Feuds And Diamonds,’ Paul Farmer Breaks Down Assumptions About…

Devex: How should the world be warned of global health emergencies? “There is high interest among a number of World Health Organization member states to introduce a differentiated alert level system for health emergencies, after many governments were accused of being slow in responding to the novel coronavirus outbreak. But…

Bloomberg: Measles Cases Reach 23-Year High, Killing More Than 200,000 “Measles cases reached the highest level in 23 years in 2019 and health authorities warned that many countries aren’t vaccinating enough people amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The global total for confirmed measles infections rose to 869,770 last year, the World…

CDC’s “Around the World”: Global Measles Surge The latest issue of CDC’s “Around the World” newsletter addresses the state of measles globally, highlighting new data showing “a sharp increase in the number of new infections, the highest number reported in 23 years, and a tragic rise of 50% from 2016…

Devex: Enough for Ebola, but not for pandemics? Why WHO emergencies work needs reform. “The World Health Organization’s Health Emergencies Programme, while having demonstrated progress since its establishment in 2016, still requires areas of improvement, according to the independent committee tasked with the review of the program’s work. The Ebola…

The Hill: Experts warn of worsening pandemic unless Trump takes action “Health experts are warning that the current surge in coronavirus cases will get far worse unless the Trump administration takes aggressive action in the next few months. Significant time and money will need to be invested to ensure states…

U.N. News: ‘Emergency action’ needed to prevent major polio, measles epidemics “Globally, millions of children are at a heightened risk of polio and measles — dangerous but preventable diseases — amid disruptions to vital immunization programs due to the coronavirus pandemic, U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and World Health Organization (WHO)…

Reuters: WHO needs reforms, while preserving ‘political independence’: panel “An oversight panel called on Thursday for reforms at the World Health Organization (WHO) including ‘predictable and flexible’ funding and setting up a multi-tiered system to warn countries earlier about disease outbreaks before they escalate. The independent experts said it was…

Reuters: U.N. says needs $655 million to avert new measles and polio epidemics “Severe disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic to immunization campaigns against measles and polio are putting millions of vulnerable children at risk from deadly and debilitating diseases, United Nations agencies said on Friday. Issuing an urgent call…