Africa and the Pandemic Fund, Eastern Europe’s Brewing HIV Crisis, and the End of Title 42

Editor's Note

Unsurprisingly, global health governance is being revamped in response to the COVID-19 crisis. However, the question of how those post-COVID initiatives and institutions should work within the existing global health architecture remains unsettled. It was the subject of the recent pandemic accord negotiations in Geneva and next month's high-level meeting at the UN General Assembly in New York.

This week, Emily Bass weighs in on the first round of funding decisions for another new initiative, the World Bank's Pandemic Fund, and the tensions over how that fund is operating with other global health institutions, notably the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.

Each year, thousands of babies born in Africa die at a rate twenty times higher than for infants born in Europe. This week, Jay K. Varma and Yewande Alimi discuss one way to ensure more babies on the African continent will live to see their next birthday: better hospital sanitation.

Out third contributor, Sarah Weber, warns of the European public health crisis the world is not watching: HIV. Ukraine has long had HIV rates six times than the rest of Europe, but new infections could be multiplying faster still amid the conflict in that country and among its refugees.

Wrapping up the week, we feature an interview with Katharine Donato, a professor of international migration at Georgetown University, and Katherine McCann, an expert on forced migration and health at Columbia University, on what the end of Title 42 could mean for migrant health in the United States.

As always, thank you for reading. —Thomas J. Bollyky, Editor