Reproductive rights, including the right to access abortion, are grounded in internationally recognized human rights.

(New York) – Governments should work with affected communities to promote accurate, non-stigmatizing information about monkeypox and make testing and treatment widely accessible, Human Rights Watch said today. As hundreds of cases are reported in Europe and North America, health authorities should draw on lessons from effective management in Africa, and prioritize global availability of vaccines, tests, and treatments.

Unless Congress acts soon, federal subsidies that help millions of people in the United States afford private health insurance purchased through a government-operated marketplace will expire at the end of this year.

In March, Gov. Gavin Newsom unveiled a proposed framework to force some people living with mental health conditions to undergo treatment under court order. On Wednesday the California Senate passed a bill to enact this framework and create the deceptively named Community Assistance Recovery and Empowerment (CARE) Court. There is nothing empowering about involuntary treatment.

North Korean officials have made an unprecedented admission regarding the country’s Covid-19 health crisis after reporting a Covid-19 case for the very first time. In a rare instance of allowing government-run media to report negative news, officials announced that an unspecified “fever” was spreading “explosively” in the country, infecting more than 1.2 million people and killing 50.

“We just buried Mom. Can you believe it? She was too young to die. I can’t take her place for my younger siblings.” These are the painful words of my 17-year-old cousin, Sima, who had just lost her mother a few hours before we spoke. My Aunt Bibi was only 40 years old.

Nearly 15 million people have died either directly or indirectly from Covid-19 in the past two years, new data from the World Health Organization shows. Human rights failures underly this devastating death toll. Authorities have the knowledge, technology, and tools to prevent infections and deaths, but widespread policy failures are prolonging the pandemic and exacerbating its effects.

Many countries around the world are not monitoring and reporting on Covid-19 infection, death, and mitigation efforts in detention settings, health and human rights experts said in a new statement.

At least six inmates in Cameroon’s second largest jail, the “New Bell” prison in Douala, have died since March from the country’s cholera outbreak. The latest victim, 30-year-old political prisoner Rodrigue Ndagueho Koufet, died on April 7.

The Chinese government should respect the right to health and other basic rights in its response to the Covid-19 surge in the country, Human Rights Watch said today.

A newly leaked text reveals that negotiations between the European Union, United States, South Africa, and India at the World Trade Organization (WTO) on an intellectual property waiver for Covid-19 related products require more work to achieve a meaningful outcome, Human Rights Watch said today.

Governments should redouble efforts to uphold their legal obligation to ensure the highest attainable standard of health for people everywhere.

As we enter another year of this wretched pandemic that has killed more than 6 million the divide between the vaccine haves and have-nots is not only huge, it’s growing.

Cataclysm. Inordinate suffering. Widespread disruption. Intergenerational loss. This is only a snapshot of the terms used by experts to describe the fragile situation of education systems around the globe as we enter the Covid-19 pandemic’s third year.

Two years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, governments around the world are still failing to protect the rights of older people. From ageist comments by public figures to persistent staffing shortages and use of chemical restraints in care homes, the protection of older people’s rights has been put under the spotlight like never before -- and comes up lacking.