Italy has become the first nation to require pharmaceutical companies to disclose secret data about any public subsidies it may have received for the development of a new drug, during negotiations over drug pricing and reimbursement with national regulatory authorities, according to a decree published Friday in the nation’s official gazette. The decree, following on […] Continue reading ->
In past decades, Europe has achieved one of the world’s highest water and sanitation coverages, but it is often forgotten that one in ten schools in the 53 countries of WHO’s European region still lack basic hand washing facilities, leaving some 5 million pupils without access to soap and clean water. All in all, some 31 […] Continue reading ->
Ibadan, Nigeria – The World Health Organisation (WHO) is advocating for equitable access to effective COVID-19 vaccines but developments surrounding the race to a vaccine suggest this may be extremely difficult. And health policy leaders in Africa and other low and middle-income countries are increasingly worried about their prospects for being pushed to the back […] Continue reading ->
A new Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) Action Fund will inject nearly US $1 billion into the collapsing antibiotic development pipeline, aiming to bring two to four new antibiotics to patients by 2030. The investment, organized by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations and 23 different pharma companies, is the biggest single investment in antibiotic […] Continue reading ->
Cape Town, South Africa – The US government’s recent purchase of almost the entire available stock of Gilead’s remdesivir – a medicine shown to help speed up the recovery of people who are moderately sick with COVID-19 – has raised fears about whether poorer countries will also be left in the dust if a vaccine […] Continue reading ->
A six-vial five-day course of remdesivir – a promising COVID-19 treatment – will be priced at US $2340, or $390 per vial for developed countries, Gilead Sciences Chief Executive Officer Daniel O’Day wrote in an open letter on Monday. “Earlier hospital discharge [thanks to treatment by remdesivir] would result in hospital savings of approximately $12,000 […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization aims to raise a whopping US $31.3 billion to fund the ambitious goals of the Access to COVID-19 Tools (ACT) Accelerator; a multi-stakeholder initiative that aims to develop and deploy diagnostics, drugs, and vaccines to control the virus. But so far, only $US 3.4 billion has been pledged towards the initial […] Continue reading ->
A standardized set of more than 80 compounds with known or predicted activity against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, has been compiled by the Medicines for Malaria Venture in an effort to catalyze the discovery of drugs for the disease. The announcement comes amidst rapid shifts in the research around potential COVID-19 treatments. Just […] Continue reading ->
About 1.7 billion people, or 22% of the world’s population, has at least one underlying health condition that puts them at increased risk of becoming seriously ill with COVID-19, according to a new modelling study published in Lancet Global Health. Based on the new assessment, about 4% of the world’s population, in total, is at […] Continue reading ->
African countries are lifting lockdowns even as COVID-19 cases across the continent reached a grim new milestone, topping 200,000 cases. The pandemic took only 19 days to reach 200,000 cases in Africa, while it took 98 days to reach the first 100,000 cases. Yet carefully easing lockdown orders in Africa may be the right move […] Continue reading ->