Dear Colleagues,

It was a rather busy week in global health, with among others World TB Day on Monday (this year with quite some focus on diagnostics innovations), the Global Maternal and Newborn Health conference in Nairobi (including a push for a “New Deal” on Maternal and Child Health in Africa ),  a  looming deadline for the bilateral health agreements between the US and African countries (detailed implementation plans normally have to be ready by 31 March …  ), but most of all, of course, the  PABS Annex negotiations  in Geneva. As the last round was about to start (23 March), the Bureau draft text looked – with an understatement – badly “out of balance”. Let’s see whether that improves by tomorrow. The draft ( quickly discarded on Monday), was certainly  a far cry from the lofty ‘No one is safe till everyone is safe’  EU rhetoric from the old Covid days. This week, so far only  ‘incremental progress’  was spotted…  

Along somewhat similar lines, the latest (2025) State...