A new sublicense agreement for a COVID-19 antibody test has been announced Thursday by the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) on behalf of the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP) and South African company Biotech Africa. The new agreement builds on the first non-exclusive licensing agreement announced by WHO and MPP last year with […] Continue reading ->
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is extending its 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) for a fifth day, buying time for delegates to negotiate some tough deals in five main areas: the pandemic response, COVID-19 vaccines, fishing subsidies, food shortages and agriculture. The long-delayed ministerial conference, which opened on Sunday and was originally planned to close on […] Continue reading ->
The World Trade Organization’s Director General Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala said she was “cautiously optimistic” about the potential for WTO members to reach long-delayed agreements on issues such as a limited IP waiver for COVID vaccines as well as a decision to curb harmful fisheries subsidies that allow big industrial rigs to plunder the oceans […] 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 ->
In just a matter of three days, the number of monkeypox cases reported to WHO outside of central and west Africa has doubled – with reports Wednesday of some 550 cases in more than 30 countries outside of the countries where the disease is endemic, WHO Director General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a press […] Continue reading ->
Pfizer will provide all of its current and future patent-protected medicines and vaccines available in the United States and the European Union on a not-for-profit basis to 45 lower-income countries where some 1.5 billion people live. However, critics have questioned whether the announcement has been timed to undermine a possible waiver on intellectual property for […] 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 ->
More stable funding for WHO, but only incremental progress on reforms in global pandemic response are expected out of the upcoming World Health Assembly, where member states also will debate and discuss over two dozen other critical health issues that don’t always make the headlines. The 75th World Health Assembly, WHO’s annual meeting of member […] Continue reading ->
What are the paths health systems can take to a more disease-free world? And related to that, why do we talk about the total “eradication” of some diseases, like polio, whereas for others, “elimination as a public health problem” or simply disease “control” that shrinks an epidemic into an endemic disease is a more realistic […] Continue reading ->