Regeneron Pharmaceuticals suspended enrollment of critically ill and hospitalized patients in its COVID-19 antibody cocktail treatment clinical trial on Friday, due to what it said was a safety concern.  The pharma company’s independent data monitoring committee (IDMC) recommended this pause “based on a potential safety signal and an unfavorable risk/benefit profile,” advising on the collection […] Continue reading ->
Third in a series – Cities are major drivers of public health and the COVID-19 pandemic has brought increasing and urgent necessity for effective, innovative leadership and collaboration within and between cities. “The COVID-19 pandemic has upended lives around the globe and nowhere has the impact of this virus been more evident than in urban areas, […] Continue reading ->
Two competing approaches to promote access to medicines were born during the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the year 2000. Today, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, these same approaches are once more on a collision course.  On the one side is the ‘international’ COVID response, led in name by WHO, but in fact by what […] Continue reading ->
It is “imperative” that governments recognize the long-term effects of COVID-19 and ensure that affected people can access health services, including primary health care as well as rehabilitation, emphasized the World Health Organization on Friday. “Although we are still learning about this virus, what’s clear is that this is not just a virus that kills […] Continue reading ->
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, board chair of Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, on Wednesday was named as the favored candidate to be the next World Trade Organization director-general  – after a months-long WTO campaign process and in a decisive moment of the COVID-19 pandemic. But as the United States came out in favor of the Republic of Korea’s […] Continue reading ->
New modes of interagency collaboration triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic should be used as a model to advance more progress, post-pandemic, on important Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) related to health, said a group of top international agency leaders in Tuesday’s closing session of the World Health Summit. The three-day summit, which featured 310 speakers at […] Continue reading ->
At a time when the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of health systems – digital health technologies are playing a fast-expanding role – showing their revolutionary potential to address old and new needs and gaps, said participants on a Digital Health panel at the World Health Summit on Monday.  “COVID-19 is the first pandemic […] Continue reading ->
Spain announced a state of emergency on Sunday and ordered a nationwide curfew just days after becoming the first Western European country to surpass one million confirmed cases. The curfew and restrictions on gatherings of more than six people has made Spain the latest country in Europe to toughen its guidelines, after France placed 46 […] Continue reading ->