America’s most-respected public health guru, Dr Anthony Fauci, said Wednesday that he is “cautiously optimistic’ that at least one COVID-19 vaccine will prove to be safe and effective later this month or next.   While warning that “one can never guarantee a safe and effective vaccine… we are cautiously optimistic that we will have one based […] Continue reading ->
The COVID-19 pandemic will end at some point. But TB, tobacco use, air pollution and other lung diseases will continue to “steal the breath and life of millions of people every year”, unless we reimagine the future, said WHO’s director-general Dr Tedros Adhanon Ghebreyesus, appearing at the opening of the 51st Union World Conference On […] Continue reading ->
Current levels of public reluctance to be immunized with  a forthcoming COVID-19 vaccine are so high that the resistance would in fact pre-empt many countries from reaching sufficient levels of “community” immunity, according to a new study of vaccine hesitancy among people in 19 of the most COVID-impacted countries around the world. The study of […] Continue reading ->
As the northern hemisphere enters winter, “COVID-19 cases are accelerating, particularly in Europe and North America,” said WHO’s Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking at a Monday press briefing.  In words that echoed warnings from European officials last week, Dr Tedros and WHO’s health emergencies team stressed that governments need to double down on […] Continue reading ->
Genetically modified mosquitoes could be an innovative tool to combat vector-borne diseases and eliminate malaria, says a new WHO position statement. Genetically modified mosquitoes are designed to suppress mosquito populations and reduce their susceptibility to infection and their ability to transmit disease-carrying pathogens. WHO announced their support for the continued investigation into genetically modified mosquitoes as […] Continue reading ->
The COVID-19 pandemic, along with the continued global rise in chronic illness and related disease risk factors, such as obesity, high blood sugar, and outdoor air pollution exposures, seen over the past 30 years has created a ‘perfect storm’, fueling COVID-19 deaths, says a new study published Thursday in The Lancet . The global disease […] Continue reading ->
Pfizer CEO, Albert Bourla, announced Friday in an open letter that the pharmaceutical company developing a COVID-19 vaccine will not request an emergency authorization before mid-November – meaning that the file of the vaccine candidate that is regarded as the front-runner in the global race to get a vaccine to market would only be reviewed […] Continue reading ->
Two more experimental COVID-19 drugs, including the much-touted Remdesivir, appear to have fallen by the wayside, failing to show significant reductions in mortality among seriously ill patients. Interim results on Remdesivir and three other drug treatments being studied as part of the WHO Solidarity Therapeutics Trial, the world’s largest randomized controlled trial of COVID-19 drugs, […] Continue reading ->