One of the world’s largest global health initiatives (GHI), vaccine alliance Gavi, started in a UNICEF basement with a staff of five people. Nearly 25 years later, Gavi has grown into one of the most influential players on the global health stage, driving progress on key global health challenges. Yet several experts on global health […] Continue reading ->
In Unusual Move, US FDA Invites Pfizer to Request COVID-19 Vaccine Approval for Infants and Toddlers
What does the FDA know that we don’t? Hopefully a lot. Without offering much detail, the FDA yesterday afternoon asked Pfizer to send over a rolling submission to amend its Covid-19 vaccine Emergency Use Authorization to include children 6 months to under 5 years of age. The tricky part in making such a request is […] Continue reading ->
As the WHO Executive Board resumes talks this week on a much-discussed Pandemic Accord, and other preparedness measures, three noted infectious disease experts chart a course for “eliminating” SARS-COV2 – warning that will take more sustained global coordination and determination than what has been seen so far. At the outbreak of World War 1 in […] Continue reading ->
As more vaccine supplies finally become available to the world’s low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), the latent challenges that should have been addressed long before have emerged. Those include vaccine hesitancy and the ability of weak health systems to mount mass vaccination campaigns amidst other pressing health needs. Global policymakers need to shift their attention from […] Continue reading ->
Long months of pandemic lockdown have only exacerbated the harms due to alcohol experienced by billions of people worldwide. Now, WHO is in the process of developing a new alcohol action plan, in an effort to re-energize a stagnant process and overcome a “lost decade” of little progress on alcohol policies. Can it make a […] Continue reading ->
In the coming months, 600 million doses of single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccines, manufactured in Hyderabad, are likely to be exported to Europe or the United States, at a time when India grapples with vaccinating its own citizens. Civil-society organisations are concerned that millions of doses of the COVID-19 vaccine may end up in the […] Continue reading ->
A new appeal about the course of the SARS-CoV2 virus hunt, penned by an international group of scientists, urges WHO member states to seize the moment of the upcoming World Health Assembly to adopt a much tougher mandate, with more rigorous scientific measures, to get to the truth of whether the SARS-CoV2 virus first infected […] Continue reading ->
Despite rising calls for a pandemic treaty, including from 25 world leaders in an open letter last month, some global health experts doubt that a treaty would be the most efficient way to quickly strengthen the world’s capacity to beat COVID – and prevent future pandemics. “I don’t think we have time to negotiate another […] Continue reading ->
In an unusually bold step for the cautious global health agency, the World Health Organization has called upon countries to suspend the sale of captured live wild mammals in food markets as an emergency measure. The appeal follows on the publication of a report by a WHO-convened international team examining the origins of the SARS-CoV2 […] Continue reading ->
ISLAMABAD – Pakistan authorities are threatening to fire healthcare workers who refuse to be vaccinated with the Chinese-donated SinoPharm COVID-19 vaccine. In a harshly worded letter, , the Directorate of Health Services in Sindh warns frontline health care workers that reluctance to get the jab will result in “strict disciplinary action” including suspension or dismissal […] Continue reading ->