Dear Colleagues,

Given our weekly Friday morning deadline, we pick up from where we left last week. Last Friday, WHO released new global health estimates. Among the key findings: eight of the world’s ten leading causes of death were NCDs in 2023.  And “In 2023, for the first time, communicable diseases accounted for less than half of all deaths in low-income countries, marking another step in the global epidemiological transition. “   NCDs increasingly rule the world. Eat that, Donald.

In this newsletter issue, we also briefly come back on the EU Gastein Forum (29 Sept- 2 Oct), where  various notions of health sovereignty were being discussed. Speaking of health sovereignty, Zambia booked a rather neat victory this week, signing a $3.6 billion health plan with the US that won’t require sharing of patient data after all. Also evidence of what N A Evaborhene described in a must-read analysis on Global Policy, “Domestic Politics and the Future of Global Health Governance.”