Researchers worldwide are searching for ways to reduce dependence on antibiotics to preserve these life-saving medicines in the face of the rise in antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Drug resistance is currently implicated in 700,000 deaths each year, and the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the red flag last month over the lack of new antibacterial treatments being […] Continue reading ->
Two leading researchers who have raised questions about the reliability of Sputnik V’s vaccine efficacy ratings across age groups shared their concerns with Health Policy Watch. One called the results “impossible” and “very concerning”. More than 70 countries have approved the use of Sputnik V, Russia’s COVID-19 vaccine, based on the reported 91.6% efficacy across […] 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 ->
Children infected with COVID-19 maintained strong immunity against the virus for at least 18 months, according to a preprint study that was released on Wednesday. The study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, was conducted by Kahn-Sagol-Maccabi (KSM), the research and innovation center of Maccabi Healthcare Services in Israel, and was released on the preprint server […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) has once more raised the red flag over the lack of new antibacterial treatments being developed to address the mounting threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). In its annual ‘pipeline report’, which assesses those antibacterial drugs in preclinical and clinical development, WHO describes the pipeline as “stagnant” and “far from meeting […] Continue reading ->
The Global Health Matters podcast with host Garry Aslanyan. It was 11 November 2022 when Dr Sikhulile Moyo and his team of scientists in Botswana discovered Omicron in a sample of SARS-CoV2 that looked different from the rest. “We sent it back to the lab to have it re-sequenced,” Moyo recalled. But by 19 November, […] Continue reading ->
Moderna announced Tuesday that the first participants have been vaccinated in a Phase 3 study of its influenza (flu) vaccine, which is based on mRNA technology used in its COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine, mRNA-1010, encodes for hemagglutinin (HA) glycoproteins of the four influenza strains recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for the prevention of […] Continue reading ->
Scientists and doctors are beginning to eye Paxlovid, the antiviral medicine developed by Pfizer to protect vulnerable people from severe disease, as a potential treatment for lingering COVID-19 symptoms after single patients report that the medicine has helped to reduce their symptoms. Long COVID affects as many as one in five people infected by the […] Continue reading ->
Just days after the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that 650 total cases – and another 99 suspected cases – of mysterious acute hepatitis have been discovered in 33 countries worldwide, a top virologist has told Health Policy Watch that doctors and scientists may fail to ever find the root cause of the illness. “There […] Continue reading ->
A team of health professionals and Noma survivors called on the World Health Organization on Tuesday to list the deadly infection of the mouth and face as a neglected tropical disease (NTD) so that it can receive the attention it needs to be eradicated. “We hope that we can bring global attention to this disease […] Continue reading ->