World

Around half of the 830 million people worldwide living with diabetes, mostly in low- and middle-income countries, lack access to proper treatment. The number of people with diabetes, as well as those without treatment, has been rising steadily for decades, especially in these regions. Access to affordable diabetes medicines is critical, yet pharmaceutical companies Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi control much of the global insulin and GLP-1 medicine market. This monopoly allows them to set high prices, limiting access in low-resource regions. Allowing competition could significantly reduce costs, similar to how generic HIV medicines became 99% cheaper over the past two decades. Expanding production would also help meet the growing global demand for insulin and diabetes care.

Researchers have confirmed that bitter leaf (Vernonia amygdalina) extracts can help fight hard-to-treat bacterial infections by enhancing the effectiveness of antibiotics. This could lead to lower antibiotic doses and fewer side effects. Studies found that bitter leaf extract has moderate antibacterial effects, especially against Staphylococcus aureus, a common infection-causing bacterium. However, it showed no effect against Escherichia coli.

Researchers from The Ethox Centre at Oxford Population Health have contributed to a Nature perspective paper outlining, for the first time, how artificial intelligence (AI) can revolutionize infectious disease research and enhance pandemic preparedness. Over the next five years, integrating AI into national response systems could save lives by predicting the location and trajectory of disease outbreaks. The global team of researchers emphasizes the need for stronger collaboration between academia, government, and industry to ensure AI is used safely, ethically, and with accountability in infectious disease research.

The World Bank has approved $50m in support of food nutrition challenges in Nigeria. Country Director of the World Bank, Ndiame Diop revealed this during a meeting with Vice President, Kashim Shettima at the Presidential Villa Abuja on Tuesday. According to Diop, the fund was earmarked under the Accelerating Nutrition Results in Nigeria (ANRiN) project 2.0 programme, which is a crisis response window. The Practice Manager for Health, Nutrition and Population at the World Bank, Trina Haque said there was a need for nutrition education for children and adolescents as it is important for early child development. While speaking during the visit, Shettima reaffirmed Nigeria’s commitment to addressing its growing nutrition challenges through a community driven strategy aimed at transforming nutrition outcomes across Nigeria’s 774 local government areas (LGAs).

South Africa authority has approached the International Criminal Court of Justice, ICJ today to open a case accusing Israel of breaching the UN Genocide Convention, saying that even the deadly October 7 Hamas attack could not justify such alleged actions. Pretoria has lodged an urgent appeal to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to force Israel to “immediately suspend” its military operations in Gaza, as the destruction is going into its 13th week. 

UN human rights chief, Volker Turk has today Thursday described the call by Israeli officials “very disturbed” after an advocacy by senior Israeli officials calling for Palestinians to leave Gaza and resettle Israelites. Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir had on Monday called for promoting “a solution to encourage the emigration of Gaza’s residents” and the re-establishment of Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip.