The Ebola outbreak that erupted on 23 April in the Democratic Republic of the Congo today was declared to be over by DRC and WHO authorities – with fewer cases and deaths than previous episodes thanks to a swift response including vaccinations. The outbreak erupted in Mbandaka, the capital of Equateur Province in the country’s […] Continue reading ->
Within a week of overturning the constitutional right to an abortion, the United States Supreme Court has now dealt a severe blow to the nation’s ability to strictly regulate and reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants that contribute to global warming, with escalating impacts on health and well-being. US President Joe Biden described Thursday’s […] Continue reading ->
WHO and Africa CDC are trying to close a huge testing gap for monkeypox that has left some health workers reliant on symptomatic diagnosis. The World Health Organization (WHO) and African Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) acknowledge they will not be able to gain a clear understanding of the monkeypox outbreak in […] Continue reading ->
The world’s transport ministers pledged to cut road traffic deaths and injuries by 50% by 2030, as part of a political declaration adopted at the first-ever United Nations High Level Meeting on Global Road Safety, which opened Thursday in New York City. The debate came as a new Lancet series suggested that some half a million […] Continue reading ->
In the face of growing malnutrition and related diseases of pneumonia, diarrhoea and measles, the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that it is setting up a hub in Kenya to help fight the “major physical and mental health repercussions” of the food crisis in the Eastern Africa region. More than 80 million people, or […] Continue reading ->
Monkeypox appears to be establishing itself as a prominent danger to high-risk populations such as children, immune-compromised people and pregnant women, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned. Already, WHO said authorities confirmed cases involving two children in the UK and a child each in Spain, France and the Netherlands. Tedros, however, […] Continue reading ->
In the wake of last week’s Kigali Summit on Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases, getting malaria elimination back on track is a top priority says a senior Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation official – in addition to ensuring the world learns from the COVID pandemic that “global health” is truly a global matter. The world […] Continue reading ->
The European Medicines Agency is considering the extension of the use of the smallpox vaccine Imvanex to include people at risk of Monkeypox disease, the agency said on Tuesday. Imvanex is a modified form of the vaccinia virus, which is related to smallpox and currently authorised in the European Union (EU) for the prevention of […] Continue reading ->
Pfizer and BioNTech have announced positive safety, tolerability and immunogenicity data for two Omicron-adapted COVID-19 mRNA candidate vaccines – but for an earlier strain of Omicron than those that are currently globally dominant. The two Omicron-adapted vaccine candidates were given to 1,234 participants aged 56 years and older as boosters, and “elicited substantially higher neutralizing […] Continue reading ->
Although the World Health Organization (WHO) has decided not to declare monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), it could change its mind if there is evidence of “significant spread” in the next 21 days. This was announced over the weekend following the meeting of the WHO’s International Health Regulations (IHR) Emergency […] Continue reading ->