Ministers and government officials took on noncommunicable diseases, sickle cell disease, health system reforms in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and measures to fight tuberculosis among children in Africa during their meeting of the 72nd WHO Regional Committee for Africa this week. In an effort to curb Africa’s chronic disease crisis, African health ministers adopted […] Continue reading ->
Six months into the Ukraine war, the World Health Organization warns that the nation’s battered but “still-resilient” health system is facing “severe challenges and shortages in many areas” that must be dealt with as the nation prepares for a challenging winter. WHO officials marked the half-year point in the war, which coincided with Ukraine’s Independence […] Continue reading ->
The Omicron-targeted boosters are coming. Almost 250 days since Omicron became the dominant variant in the US, Pfizer and BioNTech on Monday officially announced that they’ve requested an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the US Food and Drug Administration for their booster dose of an Omicron BA.4/BA.5-adapted bivalent vaccine for those 12 and older. The […] Continue reading ->
A new case of Ebola has been confirmed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s eastern province of North Kivu, prompting health authorities to declare a resurgence of the deadly virus, World Health Organization (WHO) officials said on Tuesday. WHO announced that health authorities confirmed a 46-year-old woman died of the disease on 15 August […] Continue reading ->
African nations need to pivot to prevention in their fight against disease by “addressing its root causes” through a greater focus on improved diets, healthier environments, and better road safety, among other factors, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told the 72nd WHO Regional Committee for Africa meeting, at the opening of the weeklong session of […] Continue reading ->
To mark World Mosquito Day, 20 August, the Global Health Priority Box has been launched to provide free access to 240 compounds to stimulate research into new drugs and insecticides.  The initiative, launched by the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV) and the Innovative Vector Control Consortium (IVCC), provides scientists with starting points to advance the […] Continue reading ->
In its first guidelines ever for Ebola treatment, the World Health Organization (WHO) advises using two monoclonal antibodies — mAb114 (Ansuvimab®, also known as Ebanga®) and REGN-EB3 (Inmazeb®) — that were first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for use against the Zaire ebolavirus species in 2020. WHO says its “strong recommendations” for […] Continue reading ->
When Dr. Magaly Blas, an Associate Professor at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Peru, was researching the association between the human papillomavirus that causes cervical cancer and the human T-lymphotropic virus that causes leukaemia, she found herself travelling often to the Amazon region of Ucayali, home to an indigenous community among whom the disease […] Continue reading ->