20 May 2013 -- WHO's Health Assembly, the world's largest health policy-making body, opened its Sixty-sixth Session today in Geneva with around 3000 participants from around the world.

17 May 2013 -- The yellow fever ‘booster’ vaccination given ten years after the initial vaccination is not necessary, according to WHO.

15 May 2013 -- The world has made dramatic progress in improving health in the poorest countries and narrowing the gaps between countries with the best and worst health status in the past two decades, according to the World Health Statistics 2013.

13 May 2013 – Some 2.4 billion people – one-third of the world’s population – will remain without access to improved sanitation in 2015, according to a joint WHO/UNICEF report issued today.

12 May 2013- The emergence of this new coronavirus is globally recognized as an important and major challenge for all of the countries which have been affected as well as the rest of the world.

3 May 2013 -- On Hand Hygiene Day (5 May), WHO is encouraging patients and their family members to join health workers in their efforts to practice good hand hygiene. Every year, hundreds of millions of patients around the world are affected by health care-associated infections. These lead to significant physical and psychological suffering and sometimes death of patients, and financial losses for health systems. More than half of these infections could be prevented by caregivers properly cleaning their hands at key moments in patient care.

2 May 2013 -- More than 270 000 pedestrians lose their lives on the world’s roads each year accounting for 22% of the total 1.24 million road traffic deaths. WHO is calling on governments to take concrete actions to improve the safety of pedestrians.

The theme of this year’s World Intellectual Property Day – Creativity – the next generation –honors the talented and ingenious creators and innovators who are imagining how the world will look tomorrow. Intellectual property offices, associations, businesses and technology institutions and students are organizing numerous activities to mark the day, including competitions, exhibitions and public discussions.

25 April 2013 – Today, at the Global Vaccine Summit, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) presented a comprehensive six-year plan, the first plan to eradicate all types of polio disease – both wild poliovirus and vaccine-derived cases – simultaneously. Global leaders and individual philanthropists signaled their confidence in the plan by pledging close to three-quarters of the plan’s projected US$ 5.5 billion cost over six years.

Senior decision-makers from governments, law enforcement, Customs and the private sector gather in Istanbul, Turkey, for the Seventh Global Congress on Combating Counterfeiting and Piracy, to seek innovative responses to the illicit trade in counterfeit and pirated goods.

24 April 2013 -- On World Malaria Day, 25 April, WHO recognizes significant accomplishments in preventing and controlling malaria, including in high-burden countries in sub-Saharan Africa, but highlights the threat of antimalarial drug resistance in south-east Asia’s Greater Mekong subregion, where an emergency response is now being launched.

18 April 2013 -- An estimated 22 million children in developing countries are still not protected from dangerous diseases with basic vaccines. For World Immunization Week, which starts on 20 April, experts state that better supply and logistics systems are essential to reach all children.

15 April 2013 -- Statement on the humanitarian crisis and the insufficient sense of urgency among the governments and parties that could put a stop to the cruelty and carnage in the Syrian Arab Republic.

The addition, this month, of over ten million documents from the national patent collection of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), dating from 1790 to the present day, has expanded WIPO’s PATENTSCOPE to over 28 million searchable patent documents. The PATENTSCOPE search service is a valuable technical resource that provides access to information about new technologies which are often disclosed for the first time as international patent applications.

12 April 2013 -- A new Global Action Plan launched today by the WHO and UNICEF has the potential to save up to 2 million children every year from deaths caused by pneumonia and diarrhoea, some of the leading killers of children under five globally.

India’s Minster for Commerce and Industry Anand Sharma today deposited his country’s instrument of accession to the Madrid Protocol for the International Registration of Marks at WIPO, bringing the total number of members of the international trademark system to 90. The treaty will enter into force with respect to India on July 8, 2013. The Madrid System for the International Registration of Marks (Madrid system) offers trademark owners a cost effective, user friendly and streamlined means of protecting and managing their trademark portfolio internationally.

3 April 2013 -- To mark World Health Day on 7 April, WHO is calling for intensified efforts to prevent and control hypertension, also known as high blood pressure. Worldwide, high blood pressure is estimated to affect more than one in three adults aged 25 and over, or about one billion people.

An International Survey on Dispute Resolution in Technology Transactions conducted by the WIPO Arbitration and Mediation Center reveals that less than 2% of technology agreements lead to formal dispute proceedings, but that these proceedings are generally costly and time-consuming.

International filings for patents, trademarks and industrial designs under WIPO-administered intellectual property (IP) systems saw continued strong growth in 2012.

18 March 2013 -- WHO and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria said today that strains of tuberculosis with resistance to multiple drugs could spread widely and highlight an annual need of at least US$ 1.6 billion in international funding for treatment and prevention of the disease.