Malawi is launching a mass vaccination campaign against wild poliovirus type 1, which is to extend to 23 million children across five southern African countries, WHO said on Friday. The campaign, to kick off Sunday, follows Malawi’s declaration of a polio outbreak on 17 February – three months after the first polio virus case in […] Continue reading ->
A Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) announcement Thursday that it has signed agreements with 35 companies to manufacture generic versions of Pfizer’s life-saving COVID-19 Paxlovid treatment for distribution in 95 low- and middle-income countries came fire almost immediately from medicines access groups as too little, too late.  The MPP-brokered sublicences follow on from an agreement between […] Continue reading ->
The World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Director-Genera, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has “warmly welcomed” the breakthrough reached this week over a waiver on intellectual property for the production of COVID-19 vaccines. “This is a major step forward and this compromise is the result of many long and difficult hours of negotiations. But we are not there yet. […] Continue reading ->
The United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) will offer certain government-funded coronavirus technologies to WHO’s COVID-19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), top US officials said on Thursday.  The  announcement by US Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra at a virtual meeting Thursday with other ministers of health, could help bolster support for the […] Continue reading ->
Molnupiravir, an oral COVID-19 antiviral medication, has just been added as a conditional recommendation to the World Health Organization’s living guidelines on COVID-19 therapeutics.  The pill, created by Merck, had already been approved by the Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) in January to be distributed and supplied in 105 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).  In comparison […] Continue reading ->
Within one year, Africa has gone from waiting for its first COVID-19 vaccine shipment from the WHO-supported global COVAX facility to having excess doses available that some countries are  struggling roll out efficiently.  Reflections on the first anniversary of the massive COVAX vaccine rollout.  On 24 February 2021, Health Policy Watch reported the global COVAX […] Continue reading ->
The Republic of Korea will serve as the global biomanufacturing training hub for all low- and middle-income countries that want to produce biologicals, including vaccines, insulin, monoclonal antibodies and cancer treatment, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Wednesday. Meanwhile, five more countries will also receive support from the WHO-supported global mRNA tech transfer and […] Continue reading ->