Some 120 million COVID-19 rapid diagnostic tests will be made available to low and middle-income countries through the World Health Organization-hosted ACT Accelerator, an initiative to scale up COVID-19 drugs, diagnostics, and vaccines. The WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus made the announcement just before the world crossed the 1 million mark for deaths from […] Continue reading ->
While the COVAX Facility, a global initiative to pool procurement of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine, has been gaining momentum, another global initiative to pool intellectual property rights for tools to combat the pandemic has been moving at a much slower pace. Only three more countries have signed on to support the COVID-19 Technology […] Continue reading ->
United States President Donald Trump told a press conference that any moves by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to delay emergency authorization of any forthcoming COVID-19 vaccine for an additional two months to ensure safety concerns are met, “sounds like a political move more than everything else” and such a delay “has to be […] Continue reading ->
Some 64 higher income countries have now made binding financial commitments to a precedent-setting COVID-19 global vaccine pool that aims to equitably distribute future vaccines to halt the pandemic raging now. Another 38 countries are expected to commit over the next week, said CEO Berkley, in a WHO press conference Monday that disclosed the landmark […] Continue reading ->
AstraZeneca resumed clinical trials for its investigational COVID-19 vaccine Saturday, after briefly pausing the trial globally to investigate reports of a potential severe adverse in a patient in the United Kingdom. In a brief press release, AstraZeneca announced that Phase 3 trials for the vaccine, AZD1222, have resumed in the UK on 12 September following […] Continue reading ->
COVID-19 has the potential to change how vaccines are sold and distributed, but industry leaders, academics, policymakers, and advocates are still struggling to decide the direction those changes should take. A successful COVID-19 vaccine should only be sold by companies to countries if it fits within an equitable distribution platform made by a neutral third […] Continue reading ->