Dear colleagues,

With the World Cup football now in full swing, you will have noticed with me that WHO is keeping its partnership with FIFA  rather ‘low profile’. Among the many good reasons for doing so, just mentioning one here: while FIFA boss Infantino is doing – as usual – ‘Infantino things’ (as in: using a private jet in an attempt to watch two World Cup matches per day ), earlier this week we learnt  that Aramco, the state-owned Saudi Arabian oil and gas company, and the world’s largest corporate climate polluter, is also a top sponsor of the 2026 World Cup and has a four-year global partnership agreement with FIFA. To keep in mind next time you hear about WHO’s “climate-health agenda”. 

In the DRC, the Ebola outbreak sounds ever more worrying, one month after WHO declared an international emergency.  On Tuesday, Africa CDC’s Jean Kaseya warned during a virtual high-level meeting of African heads of state and partners  that   “the Ebola outbreak could be the worst ever