A sweeping report on the global pandemic response has found that the World Health Organization should have taken a more “precautionary’ approach to the emerging SARS-COV2 virus in the early days of the pandemic, advising countries earlier on that it could be transmitted person-to-person — rather than only warning of such a “possibility”. The report […] Continue reading ->
Limitations in COVID-19 testing capacity and surveillance—as well as uneven demand for testing—are likely masking the true severity of COVID-19 on the African continent, fueling the dangerous myth that much of Africa has been unscathed by COVID-19. Test positivity rates were above 10% across many African Union (AU) member states during the second wave—substantially higher […] Continue reading ->
India’s COVID crisis has laid bare the health costs of inadequate access to medical oxygen supplies – faced by many other countries even before India’s pandemic surge began. Already in February, WHO said that oxygen shortages to treat those seriously ill were impacting more than half a million people in low- and middle-income countries every […] Continue reading ->
A Canadian pharmaceutical company, Biolyse, has agreed to provide Bolivia with 15 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine – as long as the Canadian government gives it a compulsory license to manufacture the vaccine. In March, Johnson & Johnson rejected an application by Biolyse for a voluntary license to make a generic […] Continue reading ->
KAMPALA – A chorus of human rights organizations, joined by the United Nations, have condemned Uganda’s controversial law that criminalizes same-sex relationships, sex work and imposes mandatory HIV testing on people accused of rape – calling on the east-central African country to amend the law as it would violate human rights standards and undermine public […] Continue reading ->
The draft of a landmark resolution to establish a global “Pandemic Treaty” will be put to World Health Organization (WHO) member states this week in preparation for the World Health Assembly beginning 24 May, Jaouad Mahjour, WHO Assistant Director-General Emergency Preparedness, told a panel in Geneva Monday. The proposal for the Pandemic Treaty – […] Continue reading ->
The World Health Organization (WHO) has decided to classify the B1.617 variant first identified in India as a “variant of concern”, according to Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO lead on COVID-19. “There is some available information to suggest increased transmissibility of B1.617,” Van Kerkhove explained to the WHO’s biweekly media briefing on Monday. In addition, a […] Continue reading ->
In a far-reaching statement, WHO and the International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities (ICMRA) called on the pharma industry to provide much wider access to clinical data for all new medicines and vaccines approved, or under review, and even those that had been rejected. “Clinical trial reports should be published without redaction of confidential information […] Continue reading ->
Pfizer on Friday became the first pharma company to apply for full approval of its COVID-19 vaccine from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA. The announcement also followed the publication of two studies which found that the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is highly effective against two major SARS-CoV2 variants of concern. Moderna plans to follow suit […] Continue reading ->
Almost seven million people are estimated to have died of COVID-19 globally based on “excess mortality” statistics, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), which announced on Friday that it would now be using these statistics rather than official death rates. This “major change in how we think about the number of […] Continue reading ->