💉 Another one bites the bug: the war on resistance; I want to break free: from the chains of hunger; Don’t stop me now: my neurons are just getting started
#580 | No cough syrups for thee; No coral reefs either; And if you're poor, no relief either
Hello, and welcome back to The Kable for what is, once again, a fairly light recap of the week gone past.
The newest to-do around cough syrups in India, just like the last one, doesn’t seem to be fading away anytime yet. The WHO began the week by issuing an alert for the three syrups flagged by Indian regulators last week. Authorities in India also laid charges against a chemical manufacturer for making pharma-grade propylene glycol without a drug manufacturing licence. And the week ended on a sour note for all drugmakers in India with the government deciding against granting them an extension on a plant upgrade order. Oh well, till next time then.
BioNTech made billions from Covid vaccines and then made a big deal about how they want to democratise vaccine access for Africa by setting up a plant in Africa. Three years on, and after a lot of vacillation, the plant is still nowhere close to operational. But BioNTech has now got more money from the EU - €95 million - to maybe make the site work.
In more funding news, Germany pledged €1 billion to the Global Fund at the World Health Summit this week.
CEPI, continuing its 100 Days mission, has tied up with India’s Serum Institute, with both using bird flu as a pandemic model to make the world ready.
And finally, Japan brought back pandemic-level restrictions due to an unseemly and unseasonal “flu” epidemic. Yeah, flu.
Stories Of The Week
When the antibiotics tap out. One in six bacterial infections worldwide is now resistant to antibiotics, says the WHO. The drugs we rely on to treat everyday are losing their edge. And no, it’s not just a problem for tomorrow. Over the past five years, resistance rose in more than 40% of the antibiotics the WHO tracks, with some regions reporting one in three infections as drug-resistant. In Africa, it’s one in five. For Southeast Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean, it’s worse. The superbugs leading this surge - E. coli, K. pneumoniae, and friends - are no longer reliably treatable with even the first-choice drugs like third-gen cephalosporins. In fact, over half of K. pneumoniae infections globally are now resistant. And we’re fighting blind in much of the world: 48% of countries aren’t reporting AMR data at all. Weak health systems mean late diagnoses, limited lab capacity, and inconsistent surveillance, which ironically also means underreporting. Add to this the fact that the drug pipeline is actually drying up and we are walking into a tomorrow where even even a scraped knee could turn deadly in the wrong place at the wrong time.
(WHO)
Let them eat cake. The World Food Programme is facing a 40% funding cut in 2025, slashing its operational budget from $10 billion to $6.4 billion. And nearly 14 million people are now projected to slip from “crisis” to “emergency” levels of hunger, just one step away from famine. The hardest-hit: Afghanistan, DRC, Haiti, Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan, where WFP operations were already running on fumes. But the spillover won’t stop there. Even in regions like the Sahel where half a million people had clawed their way out of aid dependency, hard-won progress is on the line. The agency calls its report “A Lifeline at Risk.” That’s not just rhetoric. With humanitarian aid collapsing, the world’s hungriest are being priced out of survival. No war, flood, or pandemic sparked this crisis. It’s a budget decision. And 13.7 million people may pay for it with their lives.
(WFP)
Leave your brains at home. Because there is increasingly less space for them in the world. Neurological disorders now affect over 3 billion people globally - more than 40% of the world’s population. Yet just one in three countries has a national policy to address them and even fewer have the budget. Stroke, epilepsy, dementia, migraines, and brain cancers are driving over 11 million deaths a year. And still, basic services like stroke units and rehab clinics are missing in most low- and middle-income countries. Rural patients are left with no diagnosis, no treatment, and no support. Low-income countries have 82 times fewer neurologists than high-income ones. Less than half the world has carer support or legal protections. In many countries, brain health doesn’t make it into universal health coverage packages at all. In other words: lifelong, disabling conditions are being managed with scraps. All of this in the WHO’s new Global Status Report on Neurology. The numbers, for a change, might be lying though because of the 194 WHO Member States, only 102 even responded.
(WHO)
Bottom line
Coral reefs have tipped. You just missed it. We talk about climate tipping points like they’re somewhere on the horizon. One just happened. According to a global group of 160 scientists, Earth has crossed its first major climate threshold: the irreversible collapse of warm-water coral reefs. The culprits? Ocean heating, acidification, and a global failure to act quickly or meaningfully. Oceans have absorbed 90% of excess heat since the industrial age. That’s now showing up in mass coral bleaching. Since 2023, over 80% of reefs have suffered through the most widespread bleaching event on record. Half the world’s live coral cover has vanished in the past 50 years. Environment, schmenvironment... big deal. Except this is also an economic and geopolitical issue. Coral die-offs weaken food systems, expose coasts to storm surges, and stress already-precarious economies. What this study has shown us is that global tipping points don’t wait for public consensus or policy reform. They happen. And then they stick. And the next ones (glaciers, rainforests, ocean currents) may not be far behind.
(Global Tipping Points)
Yay. Records. So what if it is CO₂ levels? Global carbon dioxide levels surged by 3.5 parts per million between 2023 and 2024, the biggest annual jump since record-keeping began in 1957. That brings the atmospheric average to 423.9 ppm, according to the WMO’s latest Greenhouse Gas Bulletin. The reasons? Wildfires, weakened carbon sinks, and the hottest year ever logged (thanks, El Niño). Add to that a shrinking appetite from forests and oceans which usually absorb about half of human emissions, and you have a feedback loop no one can afford. Want some more scary stats? CO₂ levels have tripled since the 1960s. Methane and nitrous oxide also hit record highs. And not all of it is cow farts. Methane is up 166% from pre-industrial levels. Nitrous oxide? Up 25% and climbing. The good thing about this report from the WMO is that it has dropped just ahead of COP30 in Brazil. Because past climate conferences have shown us that when our leaders get together, they always come up with a solution. Or a declaration, at least.
(WMO)
Poor, hot, and shit outta options. A new report from UNDP and Oxford shows that nearly 80% of the world’s poorest people - 887 million in total - are directly exposed to climate hazards like extreme heat, flooding, drought, and air pollution. In case anyone needed reminding: poverty and the climate crisis are now a joint problem. Of the 1.1 billion people living in multidimensional poverty (covering health, education, and living standards), more than half are being hit by two or more climate shocks at once. A full 309 million are living with three or four.
Where is it worst? South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, which together account for 724 million of the climate-exposed poor. In South Asia, it’s nearly universal: 99% of poor people face at least one hazard, and 92% face two or more. Middle-income countries are emerging as the hidden epicentre of the crisis, with 548 million poor people exposed to climate risks. And as climate projections show, these countries are also expected to heat up the most by century’s end.
The data may be new, but the story isn’t: the people least responsible for the climate crisis are paying the steepest price, and often without basic protection or political voice.
(UNDP)
Long reads
Down in the dumps. The Lancet published the latest edition of the Global Burden of Disease report this week. We originally thought of showcasing these stories individually in our Top stories section. But it’s way more depressing when you read it all together. So, here you go.
(The Lancet)
Make it all in Africa. In The Conversation Africa, an expert contends that making Africa self-reliant when it comes to medicines must begin with making APIs locally. We couldn’t agree more.
(The Conversation)
First, grab a bite. Then read about the nearly 700 million people around the world going hungry. Conflict, climate change, structural - and historical - issues, economics, trade... they all have a part to play in this hunger theatre.
(UN News)
Cough, cough. Health Policy Watch has a very good read on the cough syrup “crisis” that keeps coming back like a scratchy throat for Indian drugmakers.
(Health Policy Watch)
Oh, and Gopal Nair doesn’t want you to see this.
Very good and exhaustive review of global affairs
Thanks foe sharing this important information