Last month, global leaders convened at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, where more than 400 panels over four days covered topics from economics to electronics to global health and security. Below are six must-know global health advances from the forum:

  1. The Global Fund Launches HIV Epidemic Response (HER) Initiative. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and its partners introduced the HIV Epidemic Response (HER) Initiative – a project aiming to raise additional capital to expand and improve HIV and AIDS prevention programs for girls and young women by engaging the private sector.
  2. Pharmaceutical Companies Curbing Antimicrobial Resistance. The Access to Medicines Foundation shared the first-ever assessment of pharmaceutical companies’ role in combatting antimicrobial resistant infections, commonly known as superbugs. If left unchecked, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has the potential to kill 10 million people annually by 2050.
  3. Donors Rethink Health and Development Financing Models. The global health community has now entered a new development and financing erafocused on public-private partnerships and results-based financing of health care and development efforts.
  4. Malaria Elimination Effort Funded in Central America. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Inter-American Development Bank, and Carlos Slim Foundation announced their commitment to the Regional Malaria Elimination Initiative (RMEI), a $180 million blended financing initiative to eliminate malaria in Central America and the Dominican Republic, which includes $83.6 million in new funding.
  5. Rwanda Leads the Pack in Drone-Delivered Medical Supplies. In October 2016, Rwanda and Zipline, a California company that delivers essential medical products by drone, launched the first national drone delivery system.  Since inception, Zipline has delivered lifesaving blood products to approximately 3,000 Rwandans.
  6. Environmental Uncertainty Highlighted as a Top Global Threat. Climate change tops the list of global threats, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2018 Global Risk Report. Environmental and climate uncertainty affect our lives in myriad ways. Approximately 90% of the world’s population lives with polluted air, leading to one-tenth of the world’s deaths.

Read more about the top global health announcements by Allison Graine at United Nations Foundation