The World Health Organization has added the Nipah virus to its list of the world’s top 10 priority diseases, alongside COVID-19 and the Zika virus, warning that its epidemic potential highlights the global risk posed by fast-spreading outbreaks.
Speaking to AnewZ, Parvana Valiyeva, a member of the Milli Majlis of the Republic of Azerbaijan and of its committees on international relations and health, said public health challenges are now inseparable from national and international security.
"In an extremely rapidly changing world, no country can be secure if others vulnerable," she said.
In her view, health security, including risks from viruses, bacteria and pandemics, has effectively become borderless. "Health security, public health issues like the Nipah virus, bacteria, overall epidemics, pandemics now have no borders and can easily transmit faster than we imagine."
Pandemic disruption
COVID-19 is cited as evidence that disease outbreaks can disrupt economies, destabilise societies, reshape geopolitics and even redefine national security more quickly than armed conflict.
"We have learned lessons from COVID-19 pandemic when we saw how a virus can disrupt economies, destabilise societies, reshape geopolitics, even redefine national security faster than any conflict," she said.
Preventing future crises, she says, requires strong multilateral cooperation.
"So here multilateralism is very important in tackling epidemics because viruses can spread easily and no one nation can save their health systems alone. Everyone should do something. Everyone can play a role."
Cuts to global health funding, particularly in donor countries, are now creating severe pressure on health systems worldwide. "Global health diplomacy is very important and financing for global health is very important. But unfortunately today, in many donor countries, global health financing stopped and this created a constrained budgetary environment for health systems."
Crucial role of WHO and UN
Reduced investment weakens pandemic preparedness, delays outbreak detection and leads to preventable deaths, including from diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and Zika, which have existing treatments or vaccines but remain inaccessible in many regions.
Low and middle-income countries are especially vulnerable because many depend heavily on external donor support to run health programmes and provide life-saving medicines. Despite criticism of global institutions, the World Health Organization and the United Nations are described as essential.
"I think World Health Organisation, also UN, have their own history, norms and standards. They have science guidelines."
In Azerbaijan, primary health care reforms are being accelerated using core WHO principles adapted to national needs. Leaving multilateral health institutions would undermine global health security at a time when cooperation is more necessary than ever.
"There is no other international framework or organisation that can be alternative to this multilateralism," she said.
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Iran's Revolutionary Guards Navy said a Togo-flagged oil tanker was struck while attempting to make an “illegal passage” through the Strait of Hormuz, Iranian state media said early on Friday.
Saudi civil defence sent an all-clear on Saturday after issuing alerts for a second time for potential danger in Riyadh and the city of Al-Kharj east of the capital, amid an uptick in attacks by Iran-aligned Houthis on the Gulf country.
The European Union will disburse €3.3 billion ($3.8 billion) to Ukraine for missiles and drones, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said after a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Houthi attacks target Riyadh amid concerns over Saudi oil supplies, as Iran says it will not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until its conditions are met and U.S. commitments are implemented, parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on Sunday.
The U.S. State Department approved a $2.7 billion military sale to Ukraine for air-defence development upgrades, along with related equipment and services, the department said. Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities reported at least 10 people had died in Russian attacks over the last 24 hours.
Chinese researchers have developed the world’s smallest CT scanner, a portable device designed to produce images of tiny fossils and archaeological relics.
Here's your AnewZ Daily Brief for 17 September 2026. These are the top five stories making headlines in the field of health.
Doctors in St. Louis have successfully separated Ethiopian two-year-old twin girls who were born joined at the head after a months-long series of complex operations culminating in a nearly 25-hour final procedure, doctors said on Wednesday.
Tobacco use may significantly reduce fertility in both men and women, according to a new World Health Organization (WHO) publication that highlights growing evidence linking smoking and exposure to second-hand smoke with reproductive health problems.
A record-breaking heatwave that swept across western Europe in late June has been linked to more than 10,000 excess deaths, according to newly released mortality data, highlighting the growing human toll of extreme temperatures across the continent.
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