WHO R&D Portal

The World Health Organization (WHO) launched Together for Science and Health, a new global movement uniting more than 240 organizations behind a shared commitment to strengthen trust in science and harness its power to improve health and development. The movement will drive collective action around three priorities: bringing science and society closer together; strengthening the use of evidence in health policy-making; and improving how science is communicated and discussed. (November 2026)

Expert groups convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) have recommended adding two new Ebola vaccine candidates to the ongoing Tumaini clinical trial in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The recommendation marks the first time vaccines specifically designed to protect against Bundibugyo virus, the virus responsible for the current outbreak, will be evaluated during an outbreak of the disease. The two vaccine candidates are ChAdOx1, developed by the University of Oxford with the Serum Institute of India, and Moderna’s mRNA-1469. (November 2026)

Consultation period: 8 November 2026 to 6 December 2026 Physical inactivity and sedentary behaviour are major risk factors for noncommunicable diseases and poor mental health. Advances in wearable technologies provide an opportunity to complement existing surveillance approaches with objective measures of movement behaviours. WHO has developed a draft target product profile (TPP) for wrist-worn wearable devices intended for use in national and subnational population health monitoring systems. (November 2026)