Sweden’s autumn 2025 COVID-19 plan offers free shots only to those aged 75+ and vulnerable adults 18–74, excluding healthy 65–74-year-olds. Officials cite low cost-effectiveness and stronger immunity. Experts warn this could raise risks. Denmark and several EU states...
The Pandemic Treaty offers a unique chance to transform global pandemic financing. By enhancing the IMF’s Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF), adopting innovative funding models, and improving coordination, the world can shift from reactive to proactive...
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a double shock – health and economic. Strengthening health financing systems has been a stressful task, not only for developing countries but also for developed countries. This study compares the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the...
The Center for Global Development (CGD) has released a working paper by Ruchir Agarwal, Avoiding Trillion-Dollar Delays: Pooled Pandemic Financing to Reduce Global Losses (September 2025). The paper underscores how the absence of a coordinated financing mechanism...
The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare the devastating consequences of chronic underinvestment in pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response (PPPR). Despite the staggering toll—over 28 million excess deaths and trillions of dollars in economic losses—the global...
A chapter in Global Health Watch 7, titled “Financing Pandemic Recovery, Prevention, Preparedness and Response”, critically examines current global health financing structures through the lens of pandemic cycles. Authored by the People’s Health Movement and Daraja...
Daniel Koch, former head of communicable diseases at the Federal Office of Public Health, recalls the key role played by the Swiss government during the Covid-19 crisis, five years after a lockdown was first declared in Switzerland.In January 2020, government...
Global public goods for health, including prevention, preparedness, and response (PPR) measures, are vital for safeguarding populations against future health threats. Yet the scale of investment in these areas remains inadequate and uneven, especially across income...
The OECD report provides a comprehensive summary of the high-level meeting on global public goods (GPGs) for health, convened by the OECD and the Global Health Centre (GHC) on 27 November 2024 in Geneva. It captures key discussions on the challenges of financing GPGs,...
WHO has updated the Global Health Expenditure Database (GHED) for over 190 Member States and is hosting a Webinar on February 4, 2025, to discuss the key findings of the 2024 Global Health Expenditure Report launched in December 2024. The World Health Organization...
This paper analyzes the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and financial protection in four East Asia and Pacific (EAP) countries: Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand. It highlights a general improvement in service coverage in...
IMF blog highlights fragmented health financing and inadequate domestic spending in low-income countries. They call for integrated health systems, better donor coordination, and increased domestic funding to achieve universal health coverage. In their recent blog for...
The World Health Organization’s report highlights the pivotal role of social protection in mitigating the socioeconomic impacts of public health and social measures (PHSM) during COVID-19. Drawing insights from 316 studies across 123 countries, it explores how...
The 2024 Global Health Expenditure Report analyses health spending in 2022, the third year of the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting how countries managed financial shocks and the evolving trends in public, private, and external health financing. While global health...
The research paper "The cost of the re-emergence of monkeypox: An overview of health financing in Africa," authored by Taiwo Oluwaseun Sokunbi and Elijah Orimisan Akinbi, examines the financial burden of the recent monkeypox (mpox) outbreaks on Africa’s healthcare...
