Efforts to reduce the number of people killed or injured by snakes got “kicked in the teeth” by the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, snakebite crusaders are hoping to get their quest for better antivenoms back on the global health agenda.
Also in today’s edition: Azerbaijan promises a climate finance deal, and the African Development Bank’s presidential election season heats up.
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Snakes have managed to slither under the global health radar for too long.
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According to the best estimates — and the best estimates are not very good — somewhere between 81,000 and 138,000 people die every year from snakebite, with another 400,000 suffering permanent disability. But the lack of data has been a funding roadblock, says World Health Organization snakebite expert David Williams.
“If you have the epidemiological data then you can look at the public budget and properly resource the budget to respond to the problem,” he tells my colleague Vince Chadwick.
Vince writes that the pieces of a more aggressive and better-funded global snakebite strategy are falling in place; while countries that suffer most from the problem — like India — are also putting together action plans and new initiatives of their own.
A key piece of the puzzle is getting antivenom right.
“Most antivenoms are not designed, historically at least, with much consideration to the biological reality of the problem,” says Williams. The “biological reality,” in this case, being a less nightmare-inducing way of saying, “how much venom different kinds of snakes can inject into a person’s body with their fangs.”
Both snakes and humans are on the move due to climate change and demographic shifts, and crossing each other’s paths in new places. Experts need to understand the “human and snake ecology” if they’re going to get their thickly gloved hands around the problem.
And — at least for Devex readers — the path to better snakebite treatment will likely involve a familiar challenge in global health and development: better procurement.
Read: The plan to give WHO’s snake venom strategy more bite
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The Azerbaijani hosts of the next global climate change conference, COP 29, are projecting confidence in the race to negotiate a new climate finance target.
For those in the know, we’re talking about the NCQG — the new collective quantified goal. This is the funding commitment that will replace the current agreement of $100 billion in climate finance, which higher-income countries are meant to give lower-income countries every year, and which expires next year.
Those two camps have never really agreed about whether higher-income countries have delivered on their $100 billion promise. If you want to dig into those numbers, my colleagues Alecsondra Kieren Si and Miguel Antonio Tamonan have a detailed breakdown of where climate finance is flowing.
The negotiations over what climate finance should look like after 2025 have been fittingly difficult.
Stéphanie Fillion writes for Devex: “There is a sharp divide on this issue between donor countries’ desire to expand contributing parties to China and India and the private sector, while receiving countries want a bigger check.”
Read: COP 29 presidency ‘committed’ to agree on climate finance goal, CEO says
See also: Latest global climate finance goal talks ‘still stuck’ on dollar amount
Dive into the data: What climate finance is flowing to the most vulnerable countries? (Pro)
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A few days after WHO approved the MVA-BN vaccine for mpox, Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance announced on Wednesday that it has signed an advance purchase agreement with Danish manufacturer Bavarian Nordic, securing 500,000 doses of the vaccine for 2024.
The vaccines will be supplied to African countries currently affected by mpox. According to Gavi, the company will be ready to supply the vaccines after signing a supply agreement with UNICEF, which will be responsible for delivering the doses.
Gavi is using its $500 million First Response Fund, created in June, for the purchase. The new funding mechanism was established as part of Gavi’s learnings from COVID-19. It was set up mainly to be used in public health emergencies of international concern, although it can also be used for the procurement of other health products and activities such as personal protective equipment, and community preparedness and response.
On the same day, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria also announced $9.5 million to support the Democratic Republic of Congo’s mpox response. The funding will support disease surveillance and strengthen laboratory systems and diagnostics in the country, among other things.
According to WHO, DRC has limited testing capacity, and there’s a high number of suspected cases not currently confirmed by laboratory testing.
In its news release, the Global Fund encouraged other countries to also assess their needs in responding to mpox and “consider repurposing existing Global Fund investments to respond.”
ICYMI: What you need to know about mpox vaccines (Pro)
July saw a change of government in the United Kingdom, but the warning from aid organizations is eerily familiar: that only “immediate action” can “prevent further cuts to the UK aid budget.”
A coalition of 122 NGOs — including ActionAid UK, Oxfam GB, CARE International UK, International Rescue Committee UK, and Save the Children UK — has penned a statement demanding a rewrite of scary spending plans in a budget due out on Oct. 30.
“If these plans are not urgently revised, the Prime Minister and his government will be withdrawing vital services and humanitarian support from millions of marginalised people globally and turning up empty-handed to global forums over the coming months,” it reads.
Spending on international programs is set to fall to a 17-year low of just 0.36% of national income, the aid network Bond has calculated — as the new Labour administration continues the controversial practice of diverting billions to meet the cost of hosting asylum-seekers.
The short-term solution, aid groups say, is a Treasury bailout to keep the total aid budget at the 0.58% of national income that Labour inherited, more than the 0.5% planned when the U.K. abandoned the 0.7% OECD target in 2021.
With Labour hinting at austerity across the board, the prospects are gloomy — meaning ministers face a rough ride at the party’s annual conference starting this weekend.
ICYMI: UK aid to hit 17-year low with ‘significant new cuts’ feared
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The race to succeed Akinwumi Adesina as president of the African Development Bank has a new candidate.
The bank announced Wednesday that Amadou Hott has resigned his role as special envoy responsible for the Alliance for Green Infrastructure in Africa in order to pursue the bank’s top job and avoid any conflicts of interest.
Hott is a former minister of the economy, planning, and cooperation in Senegal. Other likely candidates — according to African Business — include Abbas Mahamat Tolli from Chad, Rabah Arezki, a former AfDB chief economist, and Hassatou Diop N’Sele, the bank’s current vice-president of finance, also from Senegal.
The election will take place at AfDB’s annual meeting on May 29, 2025, in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.
+ On Sept. 25, Adesina will join UNHCR’s Filippo Grandi to discuss humanitarian and finance solutions for peace and resilience in Africa in a panel moderated by Devex President Raj Kumar, one of our partnership events on the sidelines of UNGA. Register to attend in person or virtually.
U.S. House lawmakers are pushing to renew a foreign aid bill aimed at preventing state failures and coups in Africa, despite criticism of the Biden administration's slow execution of current policy. [Foreign Policy]
Nearly 6 million children across Southeast Asia are facing dire shortages of clean water, food, and shelter in the wake of devastating floods and landslides caused by Typhoon Yagi, UNICEF reports. [Al Jazeera]
Campaigners argue that imposing fair taxes on superyachts and private jets in the U.K. could generate £2 billion a year, which could help to cut emissions and raise urgently needed climate finance. [The Guardian]
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