WHO assembly opens under shadow of Ebola, hantavirus and funding cuts

Key points

• Health ministers and diplomats are in Geneva for the 79th World Health Assembly – a week of negotiations on key topics such as pandemic preparedness, health financing and how to manage public health across borders to save the most lives.
• WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus used the opening session to argue that recent crises had reinforced the need for stronger international cooperation rather than fragmentation.
• “From conflicts to economic crises to climate change and aid cuts, we live in difficult, dangerous and divisive times,” Tedros told delegates.
• Tweet URL Cooperation critical The Assembly convened just one day after the WHO chief declared a public health emergency of international concern over an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) that has spread into neighbouring Uganda.
• At the same time, the agency continues coordinating the international response to the hantavirus outbreak aboard the cruise ship MV Hondius, which arrived...