Strengthening Africa’s medicines regulatory framework is key to achieving the “bold goal” of having 60% of the continent’s vaccines produced locally by 2040, said Margareth Ndomondo-Sigonda, head of health at the African Union’s development agency, AUDA-NEPAD. But only 7% of African country’s national medicines regulatory agencies (NMRA) have “moderately developed capacity”, and more than 90% […] Continue reading ->
Pharmaceutical giant Janssen/Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and generic manufacturer Serum Institute of India (SII) charged the South African government more than the European Union for COVID-19 vaccines – and South Africa assumed all the risk in ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ contracts with Pfizer, J&J and SII. This is according to an analysis of the contracts led by Health […] Continue reading ->
A draft political declaration on pandemics, due to be adopted by the United Nations General Assembly later this month, offers “little hope” that the UN process will make a difference in global pandemic preparedness, global health experts said on Friday. The document, made public on Thursday, is long on words but short on commitments. The […] Continue reading ->
Three years after the launch of its COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) initiative, the World Health Organization (WHO) has secured its first COVID-19 vaccine license from a private pharmaceutical company, the UN health body announced on Tuesday. The agreement with Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp., a private vaccine manufacturer based in Taiwan, is a welcome but underwhelming […] Continue reading ->
Amidst the vibrant rhythms of Africa, a less audible rhythm beats – an alarming rise in cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Between 50% and 88% of deaths in at least seven African countries are due to NCDs, according to the 2022 World Health Organization (WHO) Noncommunicable Disease Progress Monitor. Yet, the realm of […] Continue reading ->
Adding to the spate of contaminated medicines linked back to India, the World Health Organization (WHO) has flagged another cough syrup for the presence of contaminants. This is the fifth medical product alert for an Indian formulation issued by the WHO since October 2022. “A sample of the Cold Out Syrup was obtained from one […] Continue reading ->
Merely months after securing US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for its Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine, British pharma giant GSK has taken Pfizer to court for patent violations. GSK filed the lawsuit in a US federal court in Delaware on Wednesday alleging that Pfizer’s RSV vaccine, Abrysvo, violates four patents surrounding the antigen […] Continue reading ->
Africa has one of the highest cancer death rates in the world, yet this could be markedly improved by better access to treatments already widely available in high-income countries for the continent’s biggest killers – breast, cervical, lung and prostate cancers and Kaposi sarcoma. This is according to a recent study by the Botswana-Rutgers Partnership […] Continue reading ->
The thorny and unresolved issues of how to incorporate health equity measures and supportive finance for low and middle income countries into revisions of the WHO International Health Regulations (IHR), are set to be two key items on the agenda of an IHR negotiating body when talks resume again in early October. This was one […] Continue reading ->
Viral hepatitis could become a more lethal killer than malaria, tuberculosis and HIV combined by 2040, if current trends in undetected infection and treatment continue, warned the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday, World Hepatitis Day. In observance of the day, WHO launched a call, under the title “One life, one liver”, to scale up […] Continue reading ->