IBADAN – COVID-19 could become “endemic” in Africa if the continent is unable to fully vaccinate 70% of its population by the end of 2022, warned Africa Centers for Disease Control Director, Dr John Nkengasong in a press conference on Thursday. An endemic disease is a disease that is always present in a certain population […] Continue reading ->
Mass Omicron infection could lead to the formation of new and potentially even more dangerous coronavirus variants, officials from the World Health Organization warned on Thursday. That is despite the fact that the Omicron variant is proving less lethal than its SARS-CoV2 predecessors, such as Alpha, Beta and Delta – which swept through India and […] Continue reading ->
Almost nine out of ten (86%) people living in urban areas across the globe, or 2.5 billion people, are exposed to unhealthy particulate matter levels, leading to the 1.8 million excess deaths in cities globally in 2019, in a study that examined urban air pollution and related mortality trends in over 13,000 cities globally. The […] Continue reading ->
Big pre-holiday hopes that WHO member states might agree on a sweeping financial reforms to put the World Health Organization’s $3 billion annual budget on a more sustainable foundation now seem to be foundering in the New Year. A report by the member state Working Group on Sustainable Financing, published on Tuesday, has stopped short […] Continue reading ->
A fourth shot of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine administered to individuals who received their third shot nearly five months ago produces a five-fold increase in antibodies, according to preliminary results of a first-in-the-world trial being conducted in Israel. The news comes on the same day that the country announced it would launch a trial to […] Continue reading ->
The world’s first case of “flurona” – a co-infection with both seasonal influenza and COVID-19 was reported in Israel last week, as the Omicron variant sweeps across the world. Since then, small numbers of people co-infected with both viruses have been identified in other European countries as well, a World Health Organization official in the […] Continue reading ->
Two new large scale reviews of the effects of the two-dose Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine in children aged 5-11 shows fewer severe effects than in older groups. Tuesday’s report, by the Israeli Health Fund Maccabi covering more than 20,000 children, comes on the heels of a similar US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) study […] Continue reading ->
JERUSALEM – Israel once again has placed itself in the middle of the global clinical debate on the medical benefits of a fourth Pfizer shot to slow the Omicron wave, when it became the first country to approve such an injection for all citizens over the age of 60 and healthcare workers. Israeli Prime Minister […] Continue reading ->
A new South African study shows that a second Johnson & Johnson dose, administered 6-9 months after the initial single-dose vaccine provided 84% protection against hospitalization from the Omicron SARS-CoV2 variant – results that even outperformed those of an earlier South African study looking at effectiveness of the two-dose Pfizer regime in the face of […] Continue reading ->
As the world marks two years since the emergence of the first reports about a “novel coronavirus” circulating in Wuhan China, countries in Europe, North America and elsewhere are facing yet another “tsunami” of infections – this time driven by the highly-infectious Omicron variant, warned WHO Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. He spoke at […] Continue reading ->