Health and Human Rights News
Week ending 6 December 2025
Gaza ceasefire at risk as Israel continues to violate peace
UN experts, including Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Tlaleng Mofokeng, condemned Israel’s continued violations following the ceasefire agreement and urged states to take action and hold Israel to account. “Since the ceasefire was announced on 11 October, Israel has reportedly committed at least 393 violations, killing 339 Palestinians, including more than 70 children, and injuring over 871 others,” the experts said. They noted “that major hospitals are only partially functional and require restoration, equipment and supplies to reach full operational capacity.”
Free Speech, the Right to Health, and Genocide, EDITORIAL Vol 27/1, 2025, Joseph J. Amon
Türk: World must act to prevent atrocities in Kordofan, Sudan
As clashes between Sudanese Armed Forces, Rapid Support Forces, and Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North have spread across Sudan’s Kordofan region, UN High Commissioner Volker Türk warned these may devolve into further atrocities and devastation for the local civilian population. Since 25 October, when RSF captured Bara city in North Kordofan, the UN Human Rights Office has documented at least 269 civilian deaths from aerial strikes, artillery shelling, and summary executions. “We cannot remain silent in front of yet another man-made catastrophe,” said Türk. “This fighting must end immediately, and life-saving aid allowed to reach those who face starvation.”
See also:
A Forgotten War: Sudan’s Humanitarian and Human Rights Crisis, Ketan Tamirisa, Lara Kendall, Faraan O. Rahim, Paul Kim, Esraa Usman Eltayeb, and Nhial T. Tutlam, 1 July 2025
WHO calls for expanded access to lenacapavir…
On International AIDS Day, 1 December, the World Heath Organization urged states and international partners to make lenacapavir widely available. WHO approved the twice yearly injectable lenacapavir in July this year, describing it as a transformative intervention in HIV prevention. WHO commented that this year has been marked by sharp and sudden reductions in international funding leading to disruptions in HIV prevention, treatment and testing services and harm reduction initiatives for people who inject drugs, being scaled back or shut down entirely in some countries.
See also:
FIGHT FOR RIGHTS: Enforceable Commitments to Global Health Needed to Fulfill Rights, Moses Mulumba, Jessica Oga, Juliana Nantaba, and Ana Lorena Ruano, 2 March 2025
…UNAIDS says progress is fragile and threatened
“Our progress is fragile and is now under threat due to the collapse of international assistance and the regression on human rights,” said Winnie Byanyima, UNAIDS Executive Director. In 2025, a historic funding crisis threatened to unravel decades of progress, she said, with HIV prevention services severely disrupted. Community-led services, vital to reaching marginalized populations were also deprioritized while the rise in punitive laws criminalizing same-sex relationships, gender identity, and drug use amplified the crisis, making HIV services inaccessible to many.
See also:
Harm Reduction Policing: A Scoping Review Examining Police Training as a Strategy to Overcome Barriers to HIV Services, Paper-in-Press, Diederik Lohman, Nina Sun, and Joseph J. Amon, 23 October 2025
Mainstream economics neglects women
Macroeconomic systems have critical impacts on inequality and gendered oppression, and economic norms must be challenged and reimagined, urges the Center for Social and Economic Rights. The organization’s latest primer on gender justice, macroeconomic policy, and human rights provides strategies for embedding rights in economic governance. “The choices made in budgets, tax systems, and monetary rules determine whose rights are fulfilled and whose are denied. Too often, these policies worsen inequality and reinforce systems of oppression, especially for women and girls in all their diversity.”
See also:
Economic Inequality and the Right to Health: On Neoliberalism, Corporatization, and Coloniality, EDITORIAL, Gillian MacNaughton and A. Kayum Ahmed, Vol 25/2, December 2023.
Climate finance left out of COP30
At the conclusion of COP30 in Brazil, the Just Transition Action Mechanism marked a success, while financial questions were left unanswered. “Without new, grant-based public finance and structural reform of the global financial system, the mechanism risks becoming another promise without the resources required to deliver justice.” The Center for Social and Economic Rights details the progress made at Belém, Brazil, but notes climate finance was overlooked and there remains no legal clarity as to who pays for a just transition.
See also:
Climate Justice, Humans Rights, and the Case for Reparations, Audrey R. Chapman and A. Karim Ahmed, Volume 23/2, December 2021.
Unsanitary conditions and medical neglect in US immigration centers
Human rights violations, some amounting to torture, are being perpetrated at Alligator Alcatraz and Krome detention facilities in Florida, claims Amnesty International. They report “a deliberate system built to punish, dehumanize, and hide the suffering of people in detention,” and documented unsanitary and inhuman living conditions, widespread medical neglect, and overcrowding. Amnesty is calling for a stop to these systemic violations, and for the United States to “redirect detention funding toward essential health care, housing, and disaster-relief programs.”
See also:
A Narrative Review of Dual Loyalty Conflicts in Custodial Settings and Implications for Community Practice, Michelle Suh, Marc David Robinson, and Holland Kaplan, Paper in Press, September 2025
Measles immunization insufficient to protect all communities
The World Health Organization reports that measles deaths have declined significantly since 2000, but in 2024 there were nearly 800,000 more cases reported than in pre-COVID times. Although recent measles surges are occurring in countries and regions where children are less likely to die due to better nutrition and access to health care, those infected remain at risk of serious, lifelong complications such as blindness, pneumonia, and encephalitis, warns WHO.
One million lives saved from malaria but drug resistance grows
The fight to eliminate malaria prevented an estimated 170 million cases in 2024. Since WHO approved the world’s first malaria vaccines in 2021, 24 countries have introduced the vaccines into their routine immunization programs. A total of 47 countries and 1 territory have been certified malaria-free by WHO. However, the WHO World Malaria Report 2025 also highlights the growing prevalence of drug resistance to antimalarials.
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