Personalized Medicine Roadmap: Paving the Way to Realizing Its Full Potential

Personalized Medicine has enormous potential to improve diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. Turning Personalized Medicine into an opportunity for citizens and patients requires the commitment of international stakeholders to define common approaches, standards, and priorities for research and development. The European Union and China are world leaders in the field of Personalized Medicine.

Integrating China in the International Consortium for Personalized Medicine (IC2PerMed) project has developed a roadmap and identified facilitators and barriers for cooperation between Europe and China, creating common ground for a wider implementation of Personalized Medicine.

On October 11, 2022, at 10:00 (CEST), international experts discussed the best approaches to facilitate international collaboration and sharing of best practices paving the way for realizing Personalized Medicine’s full potential.

This webinar is available to view by clicking on the link below.

Woman, Life, Freedom: Call to Stop the Continuous Suppression of the Iranian Population

The World Federation of Public Health Associations (WFPHA) is the worldwide civil society organization that represents over 5 million public health professionals in 130 countries.

The WFPHA knows that without freedom, without the full participation of women, there is no life possible and, therefore, no health. In the last few weeks, the population of Iran has risen to claim their freedom. The world has seen that the government’s reaction toward its own population has been brutal. This behavior has to be condemned.

The WFPHA calls upon the United Nations and all governments to act now to stop the continuous suppression of the Iranian population, as well as the corporations, to stop financing the regime.

Furthermore, the WFPHA calls on the worldwide civil society to join in this call.

Women and men of Iran who want their freedom: the public health community stands with you!

Call to Exclude Alcohol Advertising from Ad-supported Netflix Subscriptions

Recently, Netflix has decided to launch a new ad-supported tier. The company plans to exclude certain types of advertisements, including gambling ads from this new tier.

Over 50 signatories representing communities from around the world have sent a letter to Reed Hastings, the Chairman of Netflix, calling on the company to extend the exclusion to alcohol advertising in the new tier.

The letter pinpoints several facts regarding the harm caused by the alcohol industry. Globally, alcohol use is causally linked to over 200 disease and injury conditions and 3 million lives are lost each year from alcohol use.

When young people are exposed to alcohol marketing, they are more likely to start drinking alcohol at a younger age. They also go on to drink alcohol at risky levels later in life. Exposure to alcohol marketing also cues alcohol cravings and is known to trigger a desire to drink among people with high-risk alcohol use and for people recovering from alcohol addiction. The World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended comprehensive restrictions or bans of alcohol advertising to reduce the significant and far-reaching harm from alcohol use.

Considering the strong evidence showing the link between alcohol advertising and alcohol use and, subsequently, harm, the WFPHA has endorsed the letter to ask Netflix to take action to ensure that alcohol advertising isn’t a part of the platform.

Public Health and Emergency Workforce Roadmap: The First Steering Committee Meeting

In May 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the Public Health and Emergency Workforce Roadmap (the Roadmap), a document outlining a strategy to measure and ensure the appropriate training, size and shape of competent and professionalized public health workers, both for the appropriate delivery of daily public health in all its multiple settings, and for deployment during emergencies.

The WFPHA has endorsed the Roadmap and is actively involved in and supporting this work through the WFPHA Public Health Professionals’ Education and Training (PET) Working Group. The Roadmap subgroup on competency-based education is co-chaired by Dr Priscilla Robinson, Co-Chair of the PET Working Group.

The first Steering Committee Meeting of the Roadmap was held at WHO Headquarters in Geneva from 17-19 October 2022. The Roadmap Steering Committee includes technical experts from all WHO regions, many public health professionals and organizations, and its 40 members come from almost as many countries.

Driving Pediatric Vaccines Recovery in Europe

Pediatric vaccination helps protect children and adults against serious, preventable and sometimes life-threatening diseases. Childhood vaccination coverage in Europe has increased in recent decades, reaching very high levels at the end of the first decade of this century, and several countries have managed to achieve impressive results, such as the goal of over 95% measles vaccination coverage.

Despite this impressive track record, in recent years, and even before the pandemic, this trend has been reversed in many countries or regions within Europe. As a result, a number of European countries have experienced unprecedented outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases.

Even before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Union and its Member States recognized the need for concerted action to effectively address increased vaccination hesitancy, decreased vaccination coverage rates, and associated disease outbreaks.

Any variation or fluctuation in vaccine coverage rates is a concern, as this signals a lack of resilience, reliability and predictability of the vaccination program. Any decrease in coverage rates is associated with an increase in unvaccinated and under vaccinated individuals and, in turn, a higher likelihood of vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks.

The WFPHA provides key recommendations to support the development of strong and resilient immunization systems and concrete crisis preparedness plans across the European Union that will ensure effective pediatric immunization and prioritize vaccination as an essential health service.

It is recommended that governments, public health authorities and the related communities, as well as advocacy groups work together towards developing the following 5 pillars, with the final aim to build sustainable and resilient systems for health: monitoring, communication, equitable access, legislation and funding, and crisis-preparedness planning.

The WFPHA Has Attended the World Health Summit 2022

The WFPHA attended the the World Health Summit 2022 in Berlin, Germany, represented by Dr Michael Moore AM, Chair of the International Immunization Policy Taskforce.

During the Summit, Dr Moore emphasized the importance of adequate immunization throughout the lifespan to prevent disease and promote the health and well-being of our communities.