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Priti Patnaik

Priti Patnaik is the founding editor of Geneva Health Files, a journalistic initiative that tracks the governance of global health.
 

Featured Articles

The World Health Assembly during a lockdown

The 73rd World Health Assembly resumes virtually next week at a time when large parts of Europe including Switzerland are locked down. What’s more the Director General of WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is currently in self-quarantine after coming in contact with a COVID-19 confirmed case. It is as somber a milieu that one could be faced with...

A strong call for COVID-19 treatments and vaccines to be global public goods – World Health Assembly

If the world needed proof of international cooperation in the midst of the ever-widening gulfs between increasingly nationalistic democracies, it got one – the first ever virtual World Health Assembly that concluded 19th May. Not only did capitals express solidarity (many, dialling in from cloistered chambers), there was a resounding support fo...

Fighting COVID19 – A contest of facts against fear

At the beginning of this year, a somewhat nebulous period, when a little known disease was bubbling up in China, it was difficult to distinguish between politically motivated decisions from those taken solely based on evidence keeping public health concerns in mind. A month ago, in her early assessment of the novel coronavirus outbreak that...

WHO 146th Executive Board Meeting – the technical meets the political

The 146th Executive Board meeting of the WHO was like an investment case in action for donors. Here was WHO leadership noting the passing of key resolutions, lending support to new initiatives, urging countries to work together to arrive at a consensus on vexatious issues, while briefing technical experts and the media every day on the emer...

Drug procurement & patent information: “Do your own due diligence”?

Drug procurement is “big money”. Naturally information follows money. But information also enables negotiations. This is particularly vital if you are a health ministry official trying to negotiate prices of medicines based on their patent status while procuring drugs. Although it exists, information around if and where a specific drug has b...

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