More than US $100 billion will be required just to scale-up manufacturing and ensure worldwide distribution of a coronavirus vaccine, said WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in prepared remarks at a WHO press conference on Monday. He said that the World Health Organization’s ACT Accelerator consortium has received only 10% of the funding that […] Continue reading ->
To facilitate equitable access to COVID-19 tests, treatments, and vaccines, WHO launched the COVID-19 Access Accelerator (ACT) in April. COVAX is the vaccine component of this initiative. It is led by WHO, the Oslo-based Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the Geneva-based Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance (GAVI). Heidi.news spoke with Gavi’s Executive Director, Seth […] Continue reading ->
Amidst the battle against a new infectious threat, the fight against tuberculosis, one of humankind’s oldest recorded infectious diseases, is also progressing. Pretomanid – only the second TB drug to hit the market in over two decades – received conditional marketing approval Monday from the European Commission as part of a new, three-drug treatment regimen […] Continue reading ->
Italy has become the first nation to require pharmaceutical companies to disclose secret data about any public subsidies it may have received for the development of a new drug, during negotiations over drug pricing and reimbursement with national regulatory authorities, according to a decree published Friday in the nation’s official gazette. The decree, following on […] Continue reading ->
Moderna, a frontrunner in the COVID-19 vaccine development race, today entered the final phase of testing required before pursuing regulatory approval, beginning the Phase III trial for their vaccine candidate mRNA-1273. The trial, titled COVE (Coronavirus Efficacy), will measure how well a 100 microgram dose of the vaccine can protect people against developing symptomatic COVID-19 […] Continue reading ->