As the northern hemisphere enters winter, “COVID-19 cases are accelerating, particularly in Europe and North America,” said WHO’s Director General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, speaking at a Monday press briefing.  In words that echoed warnings from European officials last week, Dr Tedros and WHO’s health emergencies team stressed that governments need to double down on […] Continue reading ->
Genetically modified mosquitoes could be an innovative tool to combat vector-borne diseases and eliminate malaria, says a new WHO position statement. Genetically modified mosquitoes are designed to suppress mosquito populations and reduce their susceptibility to infection and their ability to transmit disease-carrying pathogens. WHO announced their support for the continued investigation into genetically modified mosquitoes as […] Continue reading ->
The COVID-19 pandemic, along with the continued global rise in chronic illness and related disease risk factors, such as obesity, high blood sugar, and outdoor air pollution exposures, seen over the past 30 years has created a ‘perfect storm’, fueling COVID-19 deaths, says a new study published Thursday in The Lancet . The global disease […] Continue reading ->
Pfizer CEO, Albert Bourla, announced Friday in an open letter that the pharmaceutical company developing a COVID-19 vaccine will not request an emergency authorization before mid-November – meaning that the file of the vaccine candidate that is regarded as the front-runner in the global race to get a vaccine to market would only be reviewed […] Continue reading ->
Two more experimental COVID-19 drugs, including the much-touted Remdesivir, appear to have fallen by the wayside, failing to show significant reductions in mortality among seriously ill patients. Interim results on Remdesivir and three other drug treatments being studied as part of the WHO Solidarity Therapeutics Trial, the world’s largest randomized controlled trial of COVID-19 drugs, […] Continue reading ->
A new study published in The Lancet on Thursday found that an inactivated vaccine candidate, called BBIBP-CorV, was safe and provoked an immune response in healthy individuals. This is the first study of an inactivated COVID-19 vaccine to include participants over 60 years of age. The BBIBP-CorV vaccine is being developed by the Beijing Institute of […] Continue reading ->
A significant surge in COVID-19 cases is currently taking place across Europe, something that Hans Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, described as the “fall/winter surge” in a press briefing Thursday. Europe has reported its highest weekly number of COVID-19 cases since the beginning of the pandemic, with nearly 700,000 cases.  Even though mortality rates […] Continue reading ->
  A sweeping proposal by India and South Africa to suspend the protection of intellectual property (IP) related to COVID-19 health products is set to come before the The World Trade Organization’s TRIPS Council this week.  The closed door discussion lays the groundwork for what could prove to  be the most significant public debate over […] Continue reading ->