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 ->
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 ->
America’s most-respected public health guru, Dr Anthony Fauci, said Wednesday that he is “cautiously optimistic’ that at least one COVID-19 vaccine will prove to be safe and effective later this month or next.   While warning that “one can never guarantee a safe and effective vaccine… we are cautiously optimistic that we will have one based […] Continue reading ->
The COVID-19 pandemic will end at some point. But TB, tobacco use, air pollution and other lung diseases will continue to “steal the breath and life of millions of people every year”, unless we reimagine the future, said WHO’s director-general Dr Tedros Adhanon Ghebreyesus, appearing at the opening of the 51st Union World Conference On […] Continue reading ->
Current levels of public reluctance to be immunized with  a forthcoming COVID-19 vaccine are so high that the resistance would in fact pre-empt many countries from reaching sufficient levels of “community” immunity, according to a new study of vaccine hesitancy among people in 19 of the most COVID-impacted countries around the world. The study of […] 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 ->