Although the World Health Organization (WHO) has issued technical guidelines for the development of digital COVID-19 ‘vaccine certificates’, it has stressed that these should not be a prerequisite for international travel.   At the release of the technical guidelines last Friday (27 August), the WHO stated that it “does not support the requirement of proof of […] Continue reading ->
Global health security is dangerously underfunded, making the world vulnerable to a “prolonged COVID-19 pandemic with repeated waves affecting all countries” and future pandemics, Singaporean Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam told a World Health Organization (WHO) media briefing on Wednesday. Shanmugaratnam, who co-chairs the G20 High Level Independent Panel on Financing the Global Commons for Pandemic Preparedness […] Continue reading ->
One billion children – almost half the world’s children – live in 33 countries that are at an “extremely high-risk” from the impacts of climate change including heatwaves, cyclones, air pollution, flooding and water scarcity. This is according to UNICEF’s Children’s Climate Risk Index (CCRI) which provides the first global comprehensive view of children’s exposure […] Continue reading ->
International Youth Day – Loneliness, depression, anxiety, substance abuse and job losses. These are some of the ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic is weighing on children and young adults who have been isolated from friends, leisure activity and job opportunities by lockdowns and social distancing. Over 1.5 million children have also lost their parents […] Continue reading ->
Much more global attention needs to be paid to developing early therapeutics to protect patients with COVID-19 from “hospitalisation, intensive care, or worse”, according to a report from Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) released on Thursday. In addition, the few innovative treatments that exist are mostly available in high-income countries, and DNDi warns that […] Continue reading ->